Category Archives: Church Membership

Can We Have Jesus without the Church?

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Article by Brett McCracken, senior editor for the Gospel Coalition and the author of Hipster Christianity and Gray Matters. He also writes regularly for Christianity Today and his website, BrettMcCracken.com. He lives with his wife in Southern California where he serves as an elder at Southlands Church. (original source here)

Do Not Cut Yourself Off from the Body of Christ

Ephesians 5 is often looked to as an instructive passage for marriage, and it is. But I think it is also an instructive passage about the church, especially in an age where many evangelicals have a take-it-or-leave-it ecclesiology somewhere between “I love Jesus but not the church” and “I’ll go to church but only as long as it meets my needs.”

When Paul says “Christ is the head of the church, his body,” it is a statement of union, of one-flesh connectedness. A head is necessarily connected to a body. The head directs the body and has authority over the body but also needs a fully functioning body for effective movement in the world. In a profoundly mysterious way, Christ has humbly attached himself to an imperfect body (those who believe in him) and loved this body, filling it with his sanctifying Spirit so that it will be perfected for that future moment of “without spot or wrinkle” glory. In the meantime the church is still imperfect.

Sadly, the still-imperfect nature of the church proves too challenging for some. They prefer to be “spiritual but not religious.” They embrace Jesus but ditch the church, oblivious to the fact that in so doing they are creepily embracing a decapitated head. Or those who do recognize the importance of the biblical idea of church simply redefine “church” on their terms. These are the people who love saying, “You don’t go to church. You are the church.” This is Donald Miller, who says he connects with God more outside of church and says “the church is all around us, not to be confined by a specific tribe.”1 This is Rob Bell, who now believes church is simply doing life in a beach community with one’s “little tribe of friends” (“We’re churching all the time”).2

But how much can we really grow when we define church on our terms, within the framework of our preferences and proclivities and with a “tribe” of people who “connect with God” most by surfing and enjoying craft beer together? As R. C. Sproul says, “It is both foolish and wicked to suppose that we will make much progress in sanctification if we isolate ourselves from the visible church.”3

Or listen to Spurgeon, who is (God bless him) characteristically blunt about the matter:

I believe that every Christian ought to be joined to some visible Church—that is his plain duty according to the Scriptures. God’s people are not dogs, otherwise they might go about one by one. They are sheep and, therefore, they should be in flocks.4 Continue reading →

What New Members Need To Know

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Article: Six things new church members need to know by John Divito (original source here)

Not long after I started my ministry at our church, we began having regular visitors who soon were asking about becoming members. While I was grateful to God for bringing them to us and thankful for their interest in joining our church, I knew that we needed to have a church membership class so that they could get to know our church better and we could get to know them better.

But what should I include in a membership class and how should I structure our time together? I decided to focus on answering six questions that would be helpful for those considering membership with us:

WHO SHOULD BE A MEMBER OF OUR CHURCH?

As Baptists, we believe that churches should be made up of regenerate church members. So only those who are believing in Christ for salvation and have followed Him in baptism can become members of our church. However, we live in a day when many will identify as Christians who have never believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation. Maybe their family background is Christian or they want their children to be raised with good morals but they have never come to faith in Christ.

Others have been in churches who have not preached the gospel clearly and do not know the gospel clearly themselves. In a church membership class, I cannot assume that those who are coming already know and believe the gospel. So I present the gospel to everyone attending, appealing to them to repent of their sins and believe in Christ as their Savior.

WHY SHOULD I BE A MEMBER OF A LOCAL CHURCH?

The biblical truth of church membership itself has fallen on hard times, with many Christians failing to understand why they should join a church at all. In my discussions with visitors and other believers, I have heard this question raised so many times that I wanted to include a defense of church membership in our class.
From the accountability it brings to the practice of spiritual gifts among one another, I want those attending to recognize the importance of church membership and why we take our membership so seriously. I have also asked them to read Jonathan Leeman’s excellent book Church Membership and given time during class to discuss what they have read to help develop our appreciation for membership. There are many good resources available to assist churches with a biblical defense of church membership, and I have found utilizing them in these discussions to be very helpful and rewarding.

WHERE SHOULD I BE A MEMBER OF A LOCAL CHURCH?

Obviously, I want people to become members of our church, but I care most that Christians will find a church where they can best glorify God and grow in Christ’s grace. So I want to lay out the biblical priorities in determining which local church to join, and then I spend some time explaining who we are as a church. Because the relationship between members of a local church is a close one of love and encouragement, I want those who are considering joining us to have a good understanding of who we are before deciding to become members. What is our history? What is our vision? What are our ministries? Answering questions like these and allowing time to answering their questions about our church are critical for them to get to know us. I also want them to have read through our church’s constitution so that they understand how we operate as a church.

WHAT DOES OUR CHURCH BELIEVE?

Because of heresy and theological error, and in light of different denominations in our community and our own doctrinal distinctives, I want everyone who is interested in learning more about our church to know what we believe. This is why I love being a confessional church, because I can hand them a copy of the 1689 Second London Confession of Faith and we can discuss what they will hear preached and taught as well as the beliefs that we corporately confess God’s Word reveals.

I am deeply saddened when I look at most church websites today and see nothing about a statement of faith, or their beliefs are so basic that cults could affirm them! I am not interested in leading a church which is trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I would rather share with them what we believe the Bible teaches so that they will know what they will hear when they are members with us.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MEMBER OF OUR CHURCH?

I also want to make sure that we are up front in showing people our expectations of members. I am thankful that our church has a biblical and faithful church covenant with the commitments that all church members make when they join and practice as long as they are members with us. Therefore, I work through our covenant statement-by-statement, explaining what this looks like practically among us. I would rather Christians decide not to join because of our commitment to the Lord’s Day and corporate worship or because of our desire to give of our time and money than later filling our rolls with people who disagree with us and refuse to live in light of way that we believe Scripture says we should live.

HOW DO I APPLY FOR MEMBERSHIP?

Finally, I want those in our membership class to have a clear understanding of our membership process as well as what the next steps are if they decide to apply for membership with us. Since we ask member candidates to write out their testimony, I also provide them with a basic template to help them think through their testimony. I also invite them to schedule a time to meet with the elders for further discussion if they are interested.

I am sure that I will further develop and refine our membership class as the years continue, but I hope that these questions will be helpful to others who are thinking through how to start and structure a membership class. Above all, I pray that Christ will be at the center of our church life together, with unity among our members while we serve our Savior and one another.

What is a Church Covenant?

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Article: Membership Matters – What is Our Church Covenant? By Matt Schmucker who was the founding executive director of 9Marks. He now organizes several conferences, including Together for the Gospel and CROSS, while serving as an elder at Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C. (original source here)

INTRODUCTION

Professional athletic teams usually write a “moral clause” into their players’ contracts that will negate the financial package if the player fails to display at least a modicum of morally upright behavior. A few years back Jason Kidd was traded by the Phoenix Suns because he was charged with spousal abuse. Jason Kidd’s poor behavior off the court was reflecting poorly on the Phoenix Suns, and the Suns were concerned enough about the public reputation of their organization that they appealed to the moral clause in Kidd’s contract and disassociated themselves from him.

Back in the ‘80s IBM had a detailed dress code to which they required all their salesmen to adhere–dark suit, white shirt, dark tie. They wanted you to know when you were dealing with an IBM man; they wanted a certain image to be associated with their organization so that their corporate identity would have positive associations, and so that their corporate reputation would be excellent in the eye of the public.

These two examples underscore the importance of who we say we are, who we identify with, and how that public message and identification relate to how we actually live. In other words, we have to practice what we preach. And if this is true of the corporate world of computers and athletics, how much more is it true of the church corporately and of the Christian individually?

James warns us that “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless” (Js 1:26).

In other words, if you profess to be a Christian, but you don’t live a changed life, you should take no comfort in your faith. John says “We know that we have come to know him IF we obey his commands” (1John 2:3). In short, how we live matters. In this class, we’re particularly focused on how we live together as members of a local church.

WHAT IS A ‘CHURCH COVENANT’?

A church covenant can be described in five different ways.

A church covenant is a promise – a promise made to God, to a local church, and to one’s self.

A church covenant is a summary of how we agree to live. While our statement of faith is a good summary of what we believe, our church covenant is a summary of how we agree to live – more importantly, it is a summary of how God would have us live. It does not include every explicit command regarding obedience, but it does give a general summary of what it means to live as a disciple of Christ.

A church covenant is a sign of commitment – a commitment to God, to His church, and to personal holiness.

A church covenant is an ethical statement. Historian Charles W. DeWeese writes, “A church covenant is a series of written pledges based on the Bible which church members voluntarily make to God and to one another regarding their basic moral and spiritual commitments and the practice of their faith” (Baptist Church Covenants, p. viii). One theologian calls church covenants the “ethical counterpart to confessions of faith.”

A church covenant can be an important part of applying a Christian worldview to every aspect of our lives. Inherent in the purpose of a church covenant is the understanding that church membership involves being held accountable to live in a manner consistent with a common understanding of Scripture.

A church covenant is a biblical standard. A church covenant is helpful in a church that is practicing Biblical church discipline. As members of a church, we exhort one another to live holy lives, and we challenge brothers and sisters persisting in sin.

WHERE DO COVENANTS COME FROM?

Now that we know what church covenants are, where do they come from? Well, not from the Bible–not, at least, in the sense of being able to turn to the Book of Covenants chapter 3. But we do see examples of covenants both in the Old and the New Testament–covenants between God and man, and between man and man. Moses gives a covenant from God to the people of Israel. Ezra and Nehemiah do so as well. And in the NT we find that “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, which is the new covenant in Christ’s blood”. Primarily, church covenants come from the understanding that churches are to be composed of people who are truly born again. This is what we call regenerate church membership.

In the 16th century, men and women of deep conviction broke away from the Roman Catholic Church to form congregations who understood the importance of the doctrine known as justification by faith alone in Christ alone. No longer did baptism or membership bring supposed new life. Joining and being part of a church was no longer a civic duty or just part of growing up. It was becoming what it was always intended to be – a response of faith to the truth of the gospel. And in this response of faith we gain the most amazing callings: children of the living God, ambassadors of Christ, a royal priesthood; we become the bearers of God’s name in the world. Listen to God’s word on this issue. “I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes” (Ezek 36:23). We are called to be living witnesses of God’s holiness!

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