The baptism discussion is raising many questions. Sam Storms has entered the discussion and emphasized how the very nature of the Lord’s Supper would lead one to include all believers not engaged in gross unrepentant sin in the celebration of the Supper.
I ask how is celebration of the Supper different from membership in the local church? And even more pointedly, is membership in 1 local church biblical?
Where do we get the idea of a specific roll-call style membership? We see believers together in homes and meeting in different locales. We see a great amount of interaction and unity among various churches. Do we ever see separate churches in one geographical area? Do we have a basis for assuming that today’s world of thirty plus evangelical churches in the average Midwestern city (I’m probably underestimating the number, too) is a good thing?
Consider the fact that once believers join a particular church, they often forget about those fellow saints who attend other churches in the same town. And many of those churches have almost no ties with the other evangelical churches in their town. Is this advisable? Is this biblical?
My friend Nathan Pitchford discussed these trends in an article a while back: “Shopping for the Right Church“. He calls for us [see also the comments under that post] all to take some radical steps toward a practical togetherness focused on the Gospel.
Please weigh in with your thoughts? Why do we assume the status quo is both best and biblical?
[...] getting down to the essence of the issue. That essence is the necessity (or lack thereof) of local church membership. After all, this is the thing that is central to the issue at [...]
Lest I be misunderstood or misrepresented, I think the church is very important. I think believers should actively contribute and do church, not just be in a church.
I’m specifically asking if a roll-call style membership is Biblical, and if such a membership emphasis belittles our responsibilities to other believers in our geographical area.
Would you consider the list in Romans 16 to be a roll-call? Are all the names mentioned presumed to be the members of the church that meets in the house of Prisca and Aquila? (v.5)
Tim,
Thanks for stopping by. I don’t think the list in Rom. 16 bears on this much. Paul had friends there in Rome for sure. Nothing makes us expect the list is a definitive roll call of membership in a church. Further there are no other such lengthy lists of people in the NT, yet there are other house churches mentioned. Do those churches not have a roll call, or way fewer members?
I think finding a roll call there would be a bit eisegetical, too. Taking our roll-call mentality and going back and finding a place to read it in.
In Geneva, there was but one church in Calvin’s time. The Reformers wouldn’t have had our problem. Now we have several churches and we teach membership must be to only 1. Why?
Hi Bob,
You bring up a very interesting question. The local church where I worship every Sunday does not keep a roll. When folks are baptized it is because they want to follow up their conversion with obedience and public acknowledgment of their commitment to Christ. I think it is very important to be plugged into at least one local church and serve in ministry there. But that does not mean you should not attend, encourage or exhort other churches. Our pastors and other local pastors who are doctrinally like minded are always sharing each others pulpits. I came out of an SBC church a few years ago and the non-membership and attendance elsewhere was just not done. We are one body in Christ right?
I have a hard time with church membership. it’s just one of my things. I got very involved in a church I loved – and when I say involved, you have no idea, what some churches do to make singles feel like they have a life – but still after 2 or so years, I still felt like I was “dating” the church. Not ready to commit.
I kept waiting for them to jump on me about it. They were big on membership – by the way they are a reformed pres church – but I never heard much about it. Which is nice because I decided it’s not you it’s me, and I got out of dodge.
Is it biblical? I guess I’m saying, I don’t know…and that should be all right, shouldn’t it? I mean, some dude telling it’s Biblical isn’t going to convince me. I came by my faith through a personal process, and I come by details about it the same way.
Thanks Barry. You hit on the main point here. I’m not against membership, I just think at times it is more of a democratic ideal than a Biblical necessity. I am for involvement and interaction–unity–with other churches. I pray situations like yours become more and more common.
Januarys,
I understand committment is hard. I’m not trying to say don’t commit. I’m just asking if commitment must be formalized through membership. We should encourage all attenders to get involved and to seek accountability and edifying inter-relationships but must we count noses in order to keep tabs on people?
Someone telling me something is Biblical is not the point. If they can show me Bible, the Bible should be something I’m willing to side with. I’m all for personal discovery of truth, but we don’t have personal truth–truth is transcendent. The Bible is true and we must conform to it.
Thanks for sharing.
Bob,
“Where do we get the idea of a specific roll-call style membership?”
I guess you would have to elaborate on what you mean by “roll-call”. Were there church rolls in the New Testament church, is the question that is usually asked. I believe the widow’s list (1 Tim. 5:9) is a list of believing widows in the church. That seems to assume an overall church membership list. How do we choose church leadership or enact church discipline without formal membership?
In Acts there was only one church in every city, with numerous house congregations. The reason there weren’t more “churches” has to do with the unity of the doctrine. Denominational numbers grow as doctrinal differences abound.
I agree with your concern of not having any fellowship or unity among like-minded churches in the same town, but to call into question the importance of formal church membership is an extreme overreach. As you can see by januarys comment that your question will bring out many people who cherish individualism and personal choice over body life commitment.
barrydean,
How does your church choose leadership? How does your church make decisions? What kind of authority does your pastor have? Do you ever practice church discipline?
Don,
How do we choose church leadership or enact church discipline without formal membership?
How does your church choose leadership? How does your church make decisions? What kind of authority does your pastor have? Do you ever practice church discipline?
And why do we need a list of members for these functions? If we follow Scripture and have elders in our assembly that actually lead our church, they can make many of the decisions. The attenders of the church can be asked to gather for discipline times or decisions requiring consensus among the church, and all who gather can help vote.
Nothing about this requires us to have to treat certain attenders as less a part of the body than others. Hopefully the people in the church are practicing discipline amongst themselves, with the elders actually shepherding the flock. In such a context people would know each other without having to have a formal list, per se.
The church is not a club or a governmental body. It is a living organism composed of members of Christ’s body. Recognizing this, why would not a loose association of fellow believers joined by commitment to Christ, and prizing of true doctrine work just as well as a formal list of members with a host of those outside the roll call?
With Januarys’ comment another point could be made. By setting up church membership as something optional–an extra hoop to jump through–we allow for people to escape covenant commitment. By affirming that all believers joining together are members, and that they are all supposed to commit and participate, we cultivate a community of commitment enfolding in the strays who are uncomfortable with formal membership. Perhaps in both settings those who don’t want commitment will leave, but in this setting, there is less room for people who determine to just listen and attend and not yoke up with the local body.
I agree these thoughts are experimental, in part. I’ve heard them from others, too. Part of what motivates me is this: why are we adding requirements (formally asking for membership, agreeing to a specific church covenant, etc.) to someone’s being viewed as a member of the church? Why are we so firm in our formal membership ways when they aren’t found in the Bible explicitly? Is it okay to just add rules and stuff in to what God sets down in Scripture?
Thanks for taking on this topic, Don. I understand I’m not going to convince a lot of people. I’m just trying to start a conversation and see if everyone thinks I’m off my rocker or not.
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
How are the elders chosen who are overseeing this nebulous flock? Who chooses them? Are they self-appointed or are they appointed by a presbyter (sp?)?
Who am I as a pastor/elder responsible for? Any professing believer in my town? Any professing believer who attends? What if they stop attending, what do I do? Who do I have authority over and how is that authority determined?
What do you do when it comes time for the church to make decisions (and in Acts there were times when the entire church, not just the elders made decisions)? Who gets to weigh in and if you are removed from the church by discipline how can you be removed from something you were never a part of?
I completely agree that church membership isn’t optional and I also don’t want to add anything to Scripture. I guess I am trying to figure out HOW the early church did what it did when it isn’t spelled out explicitly.
Don,
Church elders and deacons are chosen by the current church elders. The elders make the decisions. Our senior pastor is an elder and is accountable to the other elders. We have assistant pastors who are under the authority of the elder board. Yes we do practice church discipline. We encourage new attenders to attend a class during the bible study hour. In this new attenders class they are introduced to the church’s doctrinal statement and they are told that if they are regular attenders and are professing Christians we consider them members.
Does this answer your questions?
Don,
Why wouldn’t the pastor be responsible for any professing member who attends?
As for decisions, simply anounce that we will meet to vote on a decision, and everyone who comes can vote. Perhaps you might want to specify that we want attenders to vote not just people who come only to vote in some kind of conspiracy or something. But even then, you don’t have to have an official list or anything.
If you look to Scripture on elder selection, you don’t see the members doing that. Paul did it, he told Titus to do it, not the church. In our church, members can recommend an elder but the elder board must approve him. Then the church can vote on him becoming an elder. But in practice the church never disagrees with the sitting elders. The church never comes up with its independent candidate. I see nothing wrong with using the congregation as merely a means to pull down elders the elder board chooses.
I don’t see any reason you have to have an official list of members to do any of the things you cite above.
Thanks Barry Dean for sharing what your church does. Do you find that this encourages more people to participate or less? Are there any practical benefits involved in the way your church handles membership?
Thanks for the participation guys.
OK I can sense this horse is getting beat to death – and it looks like I sorta missed the point. But just to help your thought process with your own church…
I was never denied access to the help of the elders. I was served by the body and served with them. (OOOh cripes I’m speaking Christianese!)
Access to church resources without having to be a member was the VERY THING I needed to help me start sorting through my stuff. (My issue being with all-male leadership, and some weird fears I have about not being heard. Voluntarily submitting to an authority I didn’t feel would ever be able to fully empathize with the trials of being born female – can be pretty scary!)
Point being, in my ideal world, membership would be offered to those members who felt it important, and not pushed on those who didn’t. If you want Biblical, I think even you and I would agree whole heartedly that it always comes down to faith – some details can go either way. And I know this sounds nuts because it’s generally not done – but the church I went to respected and built my faith by accepting me without membership, and loved me in my weakness. That’s the kind of church I’d trust to even administer any kind of membership.
I kind of think of it like a bookstore. Some people buy, some people just visit and read – but no one puts a limit on either of those things.
AUGH! I got off topic again. What was my point! Oh, yes, that I should not be on your blog, I should be doing my work.
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.
Sorry, Januarys if we were using you as an example. 1 Thess. 5:14 would say there is a place for the weak within the church–as members.
I think your comments prove that we have bloated membership into this big scary thing, when the Bible just says everyone’s a member.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. We might be beating the horse to death, but it is nice to see how others think. That’s what blogging is for.
Be welcome at my blog anytime. We’re not always this serious!
Blessings from the cross,
Bob
Thanks a bunch, Bob.
Upon further thought, I realized I am a member of my family. But I’m only on the list of members because my parents chose to include me and take note of my presence.
Kind of puts a spin on whose responsibility membership is. Ooohhhh.
Another good point! Membership is not a self-duty, its a family affair.
I’ve enjoyed the interaction. Blessings from Jesus be on you, januarys.
God bless,
Bob
barrydean & Bob,
Thanks for the interaction and taking the time to answer my questions.
[...] on Church Membership Recently I asked the question, “Is Membership in 1 Local Church Biblical?” That raised some interesting discussion in the [...]
[...] From Fundamentally Reformed [...]
OK, I’m quite late to the party here. I found this post via Google. This very point came up when me and two other guys from my small group met for some small group training and accountability. Our church requires leaders of small groups to be what you would call “roll call” members. That is to say, you have gone through a members class and have officially joined our fellowship/congregation.
When this was brought up, one of the guys stopped in his tracks and said “well, that’s a problem – I’m not a member…” From what I could tell, his two main problems were “I don’t see it as Biblical” (later discussion indicated he meant “Biblically justified”) and that previous experiences had tied membership to pledged giving. The second wasn’t an issue with our church, but the first point had me scratching my head.
I see LOTS of scripture that indicate we are supposed to be committed to the local body, but the support for the formal membership is more inferential and speculative. Then again, some doctrines are like that (e.g., other than some King James passages – try proving the trinity in just a few pithy verses!).
For an article that argues more-or-less against formal membership, try:
http://www.batteredsheep.com/b.....rship.html
While my impression is the author has re-purposed a few verses to prove their point, much of it finds purchase in my mind.
OTOH, Mark Dever’s site has some arguments for, but the Biblical arguments are a bit on the light side:
http://marks.9marks.org/mark6
That doesn’t invalidate the position, but I was hoping to find a weightier response Biblically.
I’m way late to the party, too, but we’ve come across a similar situation. My husband and I are very involved in a church that has just put out a notice about having to be a ‘member’ in order to participate in ministry. This is a church plant that has only been meeting for a little over a year, hence the late notice. My husband has been very active playing in the praise band and ministering/mentoring the younger players in their walk with the Lord as well as their musical giftings. We have been very faithful to this church not only with our time and committments, but also our tithe. We have been struggling with the ‘membership’ part of the church because we like to think of ourselves as being members of the body of Christ and not one church or denomination in particular. We have always questioned whether or not it’s actually biblical to have formal church membership, denominations, etc because it creates division in the body of Christ. We don’t feel like it has been necessary for us to sign any papers or make any vows in order for us to be committed. We are committed to serving the Lord. We are very good friends with the pastor and his wife and like to think that he would consider us a part of his church family even though we haven’t officially ‘joined’ his church. Unfortunately, in this situation, we can see where the member vs. non-member requirement to serve in ministry (this is not the first time we’ve seen this) is creating tension in the church and in the hearts of fellow believers. Is this what God would want? We’re still praying about answers on this. I appreciate the comments of all who have participated in this blog and hope God’s peace comes over all of you regarding your position in the church whether it’s as a member, regular attender, pastor, etc.
Mrs R,
While philosophically, I think the member concept is more an outgrowth of American culture than demanded from the text, still we are called to identify with one local expression of the body of Christ. In submitting to a local church, we also submit to the leaders. We are to obey them because they watch for our souls (Heb. 13:7, 17). So while your reservations over the officiality of membership are important, I don’t think they should keep you from joining the church you are so connected with.
By all means express your concerns over “membership” with the pastor. But membership in my view is a given. We are members, and we should be members specifically of a local body. Verifying that through an official nose-counting process may or may not be important.
We are unified with other brethren who are more allied with other church bodies, and we should act like that and live like that more in our American church arena, I think. But today there is a trend toward not identifying with any single group of believers, and this tends toward a loss of leadership and a do-your-own-thing lone ranger kind of Christianity. This is neither helpful for our own souls, nor wise.
Just a few thoughts for you. Thanks for dropping by.
In Christ,
Bob Hayton