No, I’m glad you shared the rant. I agree with most of what you are saying. In fact I openly brought up the question of church membership being biblical in this post.

I wanted to be sure you weren’t of the sort that just abandons church in favor of whatever works. I have great respect for house churches. I don’t think, however, that we sho0uld just write off all non-house churches today, though. There is a tradition of preaching and large style churches that stretches back to the Reformation and beyond. We are right to challenge the tradition, but much good has come of it. Personally, I think too much is made of the examples of Scripture when it comes to definitively siding with one method of church government. I think there is a lot of intentional leeway given in how the NT explains the church and church leadership structure. We are to submit to leaders, but the local church should be about the biblical reason for its existence not building an empire.

Blessings in Christ,

Bob

1st, your remark, “…you couldn’t just worship God in the back woods by yourself and never come and fellowship with the saints in Ephesus…” is a good point to be amplified.

Yes, you certainly could “worship” God in the back woods by yourself; and no, you shouldn’t avoid fellowshipping with the saints in Ephesus. As I’m sure you are aware Bob, you can worship God at any time, any place, any day. I’m reminded of the woman at the well in John 4 and Jesus’ interaction with her. The Lord got right to the point with her and told her that the time would come when both “this mountain” and “Jerusalem”, as well as any other geographical locality or appointed structure, would be considered completely irrelevant as a condition to worship. God is spirit and mountain worship will not be acceptable. Neither will temple worship in Jerusalem be acceptable to God. If man is to worship God, then man must worship God as He is, and not as man thinks He is or where man thinks He may be.

A lot of people attempt to bring God down into a sphere that will enable them to see God according to their belief. But Jesus said that God was seeking a people who would worship Him in the realm and sphere in which God is – in Spirit and Truth.

Worshiping at a physical location is not spiritual worship. True worship is a constant, continual state of being and will not take place just on Sunday morning and perhaps a night or two each week.

Secondly Bob, although I AM saying that “church membership” is unbiblical, I’m certainly not advocating “isolationism.” There are numerous places in the Scriptures where believers met for fellowship with a (as you said) “kind of a shared communal sense.”

Indeed, believers need to fellowship one with another on a regular basis if that is possible.

I personally believe that meeting together at individual homes is the Scriptural way and have been fellowshipping this way for many years.

But contrary to what another poster said relating “church membership in a local congregation as the thing that is central to the issue..,” this, I beg to differ, is totally wrong.

The thing that is central to the issue is this:
We claim that the New Testament documents provide God-inspired direction for the New Covenant people of God, just as the Old Testament Scriptures structured life for Israel.

But where do these writings ever reveal what has traditionally come to be known as “church membership?” Where is the “church membership” emphasized?

The sad fact of the matter is that many “church members” have a deep seated sense of fear that their salvation is at risk if they don’t “go to church faithfully,” submit to their supposed authority of pastors, or give of their “tithes and offerings.”

Virtually anything in life that places “church membership”, church doctrines, church creeds, church rituals, church leadership, over and above Jesus Christ is plain and simple – idolatry.

And like it or not, this is exactly what is taking place today in many churches.

If these traditions cannot be found in the Bible, why do we get our feathers so ruffled when they are questioned? Why is questioning the idea of “placing your membership into a local church” tantamount to challenging motherhood, apple pie, and even God Himself?

There is nothing revealed in God’s Word about “church membership.” This concept was introduced by the so-called church fathers long after the NT was written. The practice of “church membership” was taken, not from the Lord’s inspired apostles, but from culture and the fathers that inspired it at the time.

When you read the passages like 1 Cor. 5 or 1 Cor. 14, or anywhere else in the New Testament for that matter, it becomes quite apparent that the Spirit of God is not trying to get us to be more faithful in “church membership,” or to “attend church services,” or a “worship service.” In fact, when this was written, Christians did not even have “church services” of any kind (or church buildings, for that matter).

It is readily acknowledged by many New Testament scholars that early church gatherings were simple, taking place for the most part in homes.

So why is the New Testament evidence we DO have concerning Christian gatherings discarded and functionally treated as irrelevant, and that for which there is no evidence – placing your church membership in a local congregation – elevated to assumed some sort of divine status?

Why do virtually no Western churches resemble the early churches in practice?

Why do we confess that the New Testament is a sufficient guide for the church’s faith and practice, and yet meet together in ways that contradict its patterns? Are we at liberty to set aside what is revealed about believers being gathered together in order to keep intact the non-apostolic traditions that have been passed down to us?

Paul said in 1 Cor.12:14 that the body is not one part but many, yet believers generally gather in a way that focuses on one part “conducting the worship service and delivering the sermon” and denies the contributions of all the other parts (except to put a check in the offering plate).

We must remember that human traditions are not neutral and Jesus said that they come from religious leaders and over time take on the force of law (Mark 7:5-13) and God’s Word is made of no effect.

A lot in our religion is predicated on the notion, “you must place your membership in a local congregation.” Yet few ever ask, “Where does God’s Word reveal the need for this practice?”

How can we continue to promote this position for which there is no Biblical evidence, and thereby neglect, stifle, hinder, and suppress the kind of open, edifying gathering ( or as you said Bob, a shared communal sense) which the New Testament does reveal?

Why, then, do many become so defensive when the position of “church membership” is examined, questioned, and the emperor is found to have no Biblical clothing?

Even D.M. Lloyd-Jones sensed some of this when he said, “…Do we manifest the freedom of the New Testament church? The notion of people becoming members of a church, and then, coming to sit down and fold their arms and listen, with just two or three doing everything, is quite foreign to the New Testament…”

Many who hold to and teach this practice of “placing your membership in a local congregation” usually demand your attendance at their church “services”. They will maintain that it is at these church “services” where worship in spirit and truth takes place. The “church elders” make every effort to convince the member that if they do not attend at least one of the Sunday “services”, they have not worshipped in spirit and truth. This is the kind of fruit of such ideas.

But when you boil everything down, isn’t our basic concern, “What has the Lord revealed to us in His Word in this regard?”

If we exalt that which He hasn’t, aren’t we going to be the worse for it? Why wouldn’t we want to devote our zeal to what He has shown us in the Scriptures? Is it really beneficial for a deeply-rooted human tradition to continue its reign over church life?

God does indeed have a membership, but that membership is UNTO HIM, not to a place where you go and attend a so-called “worship service!”

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

Sorry for my long rant.

Blessings in Christ,

Bob

During the New Testament and the times of the Apostles, there was no way you can think in terms of “Christians” and let’s say for example, “the church at Ephesus,” as not one and the same thing. The believers themselves were the church itself and there was only one church.

And you did not join it, but rather, you were “joined to it” by the Holy Spirit. This is not so today. Christ’s Church existed long before power-hungry men began to institutionalize it!

Believers did not, (at least in the sense we today use the phrase “become members of the church”), become members of anything! They did not have to “become a member” of what they were automatically a part of by conversion to Christ.

The events of church history: i.e. – the incorporation of confessions, and creeds, and catechisms, and other traditions of men, have changed that situation.

Are God’s people “church members?” What is a “member of the church?” How does the Holy Spirit use the word, “member,” in the New Testament?

Jesus said, “And if your right hand offend you, cut it off and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of the members should perish, and not that your whole body be cast into hell” (Matt. 9:30).
James wrote, “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things” (Jas. 3:51.
Paul stated, “For as the body is one, and has many members, and all members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12). “…gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body…” (Eph. 1:22, 23) “And he is the head of the body, the church…” (Col. 1:18).

Webster’s Dictionary lists “member” as 1. A bodily part or organ, esp., a limb. 2. One of the persons composing a society, community, or party.”

The previous Scriptures clearly show the exact kind of “member” the Holy Spirit uses in His teachings. Without exception, in the New Testament, a “member” is a part, or organ, of a body. By figure, “member” is a spiritual part, or spiritual organ, of a spiritual body. This fits the first definition of the word given by Webster.

Todays church leaders misuse the word “member.” They exchange the Biblical use of “member,” as a bodily organ, for “member,” as one of a society, community or party.

In doing so, they have as many members as there are denominations. There are “Catholic members,” “Baptist members,” “Presbyterian members,” “Reformed members” and perhaps upward to a thousand other types of party “members.” A Baptist “member,” for example, is not a “Catholic member.”

Does one have his “citizenship” in a “local church?” Does one place his “branchship,” “sheepship,” or stoneship into a “local First Baptist Church of Chicago?”

Does one place his “membership” in a “local church?” Well, that’s whats preached and practiced!

Yet, have we ever read of a “church member” in the whole New Testament?

There is no such thing, scripturally, as a “church member.”
Before you can become a “church member,” certain things must take place, brought about by human reasoning.

1) You must change the concept of what the church really is, which is the totality of saints, into a supposed organizational, institutional, mystical church (society, community, or party), for content of “members.”

2) You must change parts of two figures, by removing “saints” from the (church), and replacing those “saints” with “members” from out of the body of Christ. A “church member” becomes a hybrid expression.

3) You must twist the meaning of one kind of “member” (bodily organ), into an altogether different meaning of “member” (a person of a society, community, or party). A party “member” is a transmuted teaching.

Had God willed that His people be called by other names than He has written, He would have written those other names in His will also.

We are saints, making up the ecclesia, and not “members,” making up an organizational, institutional church (party).

If anybody today would claim to be able to worship God at any time and in any place, they quickly are labeled a heretic to the organized religionists. For, if church membership, along with their “place of worship” were taken away, and believers truly worshiped in spirit and in truth, the whole religious system would fall apart. There would be no reason for it to continue. The whole religious system is built upon having your “church membership” placed in a “local congregation” for people to come to so that the works of men can be seen and so that they can continue to be carried out.
The church today is de-formed and reformation is desperately needed.

Two thousand years of corruption has changed everything.

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

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.

Thanks for the interaction and taking the time to answer my questions.