Why Church Membership? Concluding Thoughts

A Product of American Thinking

American culture has too much of a hold upon our thinking and is the lens through which we understand Scripture, and more specifically, how we understand Church Membership. This is one reason you will hear objections to Church Membership like:

In the New Testament there was no such thing as church membership.
There is no explicit command for Church Membership.

When Christians live in hostile areas (hostile towards Christianity), mere identification with a local body of believers essentially places a death warrant upon those people.

Baptism is a public affair. It is a public identification with Christ and His people. When a person trusts Christ in faith, Baptism becomes the first real step of obedience to God and is the expression of faith in Christ, publicly.

Due to the public nature of baptism, baptism itself becomes Church Membership in many parts of the world. Due to persecution, you know with whom you are covenanting together to disciple, exhort unto love and good works, and even die with.

America is not a country that is hostile toward Christianity, at least, not in the life-threatening variety. There needs to be a level of accountability and covenantal commitment that American Christians do not typically pursue.

Widows Indeed

“Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows” (1 Timothy 5:9-16 ESV).

Why am I bringing up widows in a discussion of Church Membership?

Notice the phrase, “But refuse to enroll younger widows.” What does “enroll” mean? It means, they have some kind of formal list of women who are widows. It means they formally keep track of who the widows are within the local body of believers, in the local church. And if someone does not meet the specific requirements, as laid out by Paul, they must be refused from being enrolled in this ministry.

If a formal list was created for a specific ministry within the local church in the first century, how much more would they have a formal list of members?

Church Cohabitation

The New York Times published an article called The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage.

The articles explains people,

believed that moving in together before marriage was a good way to avoid divorce. But that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.”

Likewise, American Christians don’t like formal commitment before long term attendance at a church. I am not denouncing checking out a church a few times to see if it lines up with biblical expressions of a church, if indeed, you are blessed to live in an area where you have a choice of many churches.

I am speaking to long term commitment to a church. If you have found a church with whom you will meet long term, formal commitment should be required. Otherwise, I’m afraid, we’re promoting Church Cohabitation. How many people leave a church because certain things are not done “their way”? I’m not talking about biblical issues and clear sin issues, but personal preference issues? More times than not, they were not members in the first place.

Leaders Giving Account

Hebrews 13:17 makes an interesting statement: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Question: Without formal church membership, for whom will your Pastors give account? Everyone who darkens the doorway of your church?

Church Discipline

Without formal church membership, how can you avail yourself to the hard grace of Church Discipline? How can a local church take action against an offending brother or sister from a local church with whom s/he has not covenantally committed him/herself?

“The discipline of the church is first patterned after the fact that the Lord Himself disciplines His children (Hebrews 12:6) and, as a father delegates part of the discipline of the children to the mother, so the Lord has delegated the discipline of the church family to the church itself (1 Corinthians 5:12-13; 2 Corinthians 2:6).” See this study on Church Discipline for more reading.

As God the Father knows the names of His children, so likewise, the local church should know the names of those who have covenantally committed themselves to it.

This concludes our study on Church Membership. To be honest, I cannot see how the conclusion of this study cannot be formal church membership.

For previous articles on Why Church Membership? see below:
Why Church Membership? Living the Gospel in Practice
Why Church Membership? Humility
Why Church Membership? Accountability
Why Church Membership? The Gospel
Why Church Membership? Our Leaders
Why Church Membership? Fellowship
Why Church Membership? Being Set Apart
Why Church Membership? Church Discipline