If you’ve been in a church for any length of time, you’ll likely hear conversations about church membership. To our modern ears, this idea can sound strange, and frankly, unspiritual. The membership that comes to mind is of a club or a gym; a purchased right to access and participation. It is quite understandable that many people in our churches, perhaps even ourselves, have avoided or looked down upon formal church membership as a foreign structure imposed upon the church.
To be clear, this article speaks about formal membership—not simply regular attendance or participation. It is a commitment to be known; to open your life and to give specific responsibilities to the elders of your church to care for and shepherd you (Hebrews 13:7). Of course, this care is open to those alongside the flock, but it is those within the bounds of membership that the elders are specifically responsible for. In this sense, your commitment to membership means that the leadership of your local church makes a commitment to you: to care for and shepherd you, and to be accountable to God for you (Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 5:2-5). This is not an article about its exact process or structure, which will differ from church to church, but about its importance.
Without becoming a formal member of a church, you miss out on God’s provision.
Before we go any further, we need to acknowledge that in our mobile, modern world, there are a number of reasons why you may not yet be a formal member of your local church. Perhaps you are still finding your spiritual home, or you are only in an area for a short time for work purposes. Perhaps you are in a remote area. But without becoming a formal member of a church, you experience an exclusion that causes you to miss out on God’s provision for you, because he uses formal membership with its commitments, responsibilities, and recognition for gospel growth in us and others.
Like many aspects of our faith, it can be abused. But properly considered, formal church membership is biblical, valuable, and a gift from God. This article will argue that through local church membership:
- Our membership in the global Church is expressed
- The means of grace are experienced
- God’s work in the gospel is extended.
1. Global Church Expressed
“Why should I become a member if I am already a member of the global church of Christ?” Perhaps it is a question you have heard—or even asked. Of course, we should still advocate for local church membership, but we need to notice the key observation in the question. There is a global Church of Christ, and one can be a member of it.
Christ is the head of the body, and in him the global church finds its unity. Holding to a particular church tradition, being part of a particular denomination, and even gathering together as members of a local church does not create our unity. Our unity as Christians precedes all structures and comes from participation in Christ himself (John 17:20-23; Ephesians 4:15-16). All these other things are simply expressions of the unity we already have in Christ.
The gospel demands that membership of the global Church be more than an invisible spiritual reality.
In fact, our unity in Christ demands corporate expression. If there really is substance to our salvation, if we really have been brought into relationship with Christ, then through him we are connected to Christians around the globe and through the ages. The truth of the gospel demands that membership of the global church be more than an invisible spiritual reality—it is something that we will visibly and outwardly demonstrate.
The Bible assumes that membership of the global church leads to local church membership. Consider the Book of Acts, or the letters in the New Testament. In these, we see local church communities formed and letters written to these groups of believers found in specific locations. The letter to the Corinthians is to the church of God that is in Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:2). As believers came to faith, they naturally formed communities where they lived out the gospel together. Participation in the global church is ordinarily expressed through the local church.
2. Grace Experienced
The beginning of our Christian life is marked by baptism, the outward sign and seal of an inward spiritual reality (Matthew 28:19-20). It indicates that we are now members of Christ’s family and number ourselves among his people. This sacrament signifies our entry into the church.
The Lord’s Supper helps define us and sustain us as God’s people. In this sacrament, we remember Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross for us, and are reminded of the benefits we receive from his sacrifice: forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to God, and eternal life (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
The sacraments are part of our regular Christian growth as ‘ordinary means of grace’—ways in which God works to grow us in our faith. So too are the regular preaching of the word, prayer, and the faithful shepherding of ministers over us. Even before we receive baptism as the mark of entry into the church, we are saved through the proclamation of the gospel (Romans 10:1-17; Ephesians 2:17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5).
At the time of the Reformation, the question as to what constituted a true church became a crucial issue. The Reformers argued that it was not submission to the supposedly infallible apostolic office of the papacy, but acceptance of apostolic truth. And this worked itself out into three marks of a true church. Those are the:
(i) Faithful preaching of the word
(ii) Administration of the sacraments
(iii) Exercise of church discipline.
The point is simple: the means through which God ordinarily works for our salvation and sanctification are found in and experienced through membership of the local church.
God ordinarily works for our salvation through membership of the local church.
These three markers also help us when we are struggling to decide if we should become members of a certain church. There is no such thing as a perfect church, and therefore we may find ourselves disagreeing on certain doctrines, certain traditions, or other, less important, things. Provided that a church meets the marks of a true church, and is our spiritual home, we should be satisfied to become members and to submit ourselves to its elders, despite its imperfections.
3. Gospel Extended
By becoming members of our local church, the work of the gospel is extended both to us and through us. Often, through the Bible, believers are described as sheep (John 10:14-16). To extend the metaphor, though, we could see participation in church community without becoming a member as coming alongside the flock.
There is much good in this. We should expect and welcome outsiders to be present in the life of our church, both inside and outside of our services. Because of this, we should live out the gospel in ways that both involve insiders and invite outsiders to join us. Membership is properly seen as the outworking of missions. As the gospel goes outwards into the world, it simultaneously produces a natural inward movement in us: as we are drawn to Christ, we are drawn into community with our fellow believers.
Membership is a declaration that membership of the global Church is lived out in the local.
Membership is also a commitment to grow in the midst of a specific gospel community. We have seen that the means of grace are found in the local church. Therefore, it is in the church that you call your spiritual home, where you will hear the word read and preached, where you will study it and live it out in community, where you will receive the sacraments, and pray both privately and corporately. In this sense, membership is a declaration that your membership of the global church will be lived out in your local church (Philippians 1:1, 27).
And finally, membership is a commitment to serve. While we consider the benefits membership brings to us, we should also consider the benefits it brings to the church and the world through us. Consider the church as a body (1 Corinthians 12). Each part of the body is needed for the whole, and its health and work is achieved through the active engagement of all of its members. Membership includes you in a community where you are given the opportunity to use the gifts God has given you to serve Christ, his Church, and the world in real and practical ways (1 Peter 2:12; 4:10).
Putting It All Together
Local church membership is not an arbitrary human invention, nor is it a quirk of particular church traditions. It is a gift from God himself as a way for believers to experience their unity in Christ, to receive and grow through the means of grace, and to be served and to serve in community. Church membership is not about joining a club, gaining access, or even exercising the right to vote on church decisions. It’s about experiencing, enjoying, and living out in the midst of God’s people what Christ has won for us: unity with him and each other.
If you’ve been standing alongside the flock, become part of it.
If you’ve been standing alongside the flock, let me encourage you to become part of it. Speak to the elders in your church and ask about the process. Membership is a privilege and a part of our worship, and we should embrace it with great joy, looking to Christ, through whom we have unity.
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