Bright Wings

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! Bright Wings.

November 30, 2009

Why Church Membership?

In building the local church for faithful growth and effective outreach to our city, the Pastors and Elders are calling us to covenant faithfulness in MEMBERSHIP, FELLOWSHIP, and LEADERSHIP.

What we mean by ‘membership’ at Four Oaks Church:  ‘the public declaration of your salvation through faith in Christ and your accountability to obedience to Christ by loving others and submitting to one another in our local body’.  For us to grow faithfully, and to reach the city God has put us in strategically, we must build the body of Christ with an abiding commitment to one another as members.

The Biblical Justification: The bible says we are to ‘be members of one another’ (Rom.12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12ff.); part of a body, a family, a household. Jesus said in Matthew 18:15-20 that those who claim to know him as believers yet do not display repentance and fruit in keeping with repentance are to be treated as unbelievers.  This passage assumes there is some degree of formal leadership, and formal commitment to it. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:12 we are not to ‘judge’ those outside the church but those inside. Clearly in the mind of the Apostle there is some clear spiritual and formal recognition of the boundaries and commitments of membership in the local church. 

No Universal/Local Dichotomy: The NT never introduces a dichotomy between the church universal and the church local.  If you are a part of the universal church by the atoning work of Christ, the rebirth through the Holy Spirit, and the exercise of repentance and faith – then your position invisibly in the universal church MUST and WILL be followed by a visible and local expression of these ‘heart’ realities. I have often heard the statement, “I don’t need to be in a local church; I am part of the universal church!” The Bible sees local affiliation with the body of Christ formally as a verification and witness to the spiritual and invisible commitments of the believer to Christ.

The LOVE TEST of Assurance: John speaks of three ‘tests’ for a believer to discern and embrace assurance of salvation: the truth test, the obedience/moral test, and the love test.  Consider the ‘love test’ of the Apostle John in 1 John 2:10-11; 3:10-24; 4:7-12 and 19-21. Consider these passages that plainly and boldly warn us against some assurance of salvation which does not include loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. This love test is discerned in covenant relationship to brothers and sisters in the local church.  It is foreign to the New Testament claim to know Christ as Head of the Church yet refuse to love and care for the body. 

No ‘Regular Attenders’: We have really created an unhealthy category of ‘brother’ in our churches- the category of regular attender.  By regular attender we are referring not to someone seeking to make a wise decision over time about commitment to a particular church.  Such time and wisdom is necessary, and we encourage it as people decide where they should serve and be served in the local church. Usually, the category of regular attender refers to one who attends a church over a long period of time with no significant attempt at commitment or service in the context of the local church.

We have turned our church families into entertainment centers for common consumption of a marketed product. The biblical ideal for the church is not such a market driven, consumer oriented entity. If you are a visitor we will love you and serve you as best we can. If you don’t know Jesus and are seeking truth we exist for you to hear that truth, to meet Jesus, and experience the love of his family. But, if you are a Christian, one who knows Christ and claims to be a brother, then we are going to insist gently but firmly that you live biblically in this biblical family. We are calling one another to covenant faithfulness beyond mere presence and consumption.

As I see it there are six reasons why a person who claims to be a Christian will not join a church:

1. Ignorance- Maybe you just didn’t know or didn’t realize the gravity of such a commitment. We call you to come to Welcome to the Family (our 6 week membership class) and discover what we believe about these things. If this is where God is calling you to serve, be served, be cared for, be taught, then we call upon you to covenant your heart to us as a family.

2. Conviction – You might have a biblical conviction that is different than our position on membership, or perhaps some other issue. If your conviction binds your conscience in such a way that you cannot submit yourself to the leadership then you should seek a church family that allows you to do so. If you can disagree on a conviction yet with a clear conscience submit to this local church (and the leadership does not see it as a binding issue which prevents you from being a member) and not disrupt the unity of the body, then we call you to do so with a glad heart.

3. Pain/Fear/Anger- Many believers have been hurt,  burned, or wronged before in the context of the church. I understand this fully. I am a pastor’s kid and I’ve seen difficult building programs, church splits, betrayal, hurt, in-fighting, abuse by the leadership, what have you. But, there a couple of realities that I keep in the forefront of my mind as I encounter these struggles and pain in the church. First, Jesus loved the Church enough to shed his blood for her, I can love the Church enough to be patient and forgiving with her. Second, I am an imperfect sinner and have done my share of hurting, wronging, and cannot point the finger or sit on the sideline as a victim. When you find a perfect church, I strongly exhort you not to join because you will most certainly be the ruin of it.

4. ‘Surrogate’ communities- In the evangelical community we have created many surrogate communities which we wrongfully look to as our church. It may be a parachurch campus ministry, a Christian school, a bible study group, or just a handful of friends. These ministries are very important in their proper context and according to their proper mission. But they must not, and biblically should not, stand in the place of the local church in the believer’s life. It might meet a specific need in a specific season- but the believer is called to meet the needs of others and not simply have their needs met. We are called to be a part of a family with brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and people beyond our season of life, or demographic niche. We are called to be under biblically ordained leadership assembled and ordered as a church in accordance with the teaching of the Scriptures. If a parachurch ministry is operating as a local church, then it should be held accountable to the requirements and calling of a local church biblically.

5. Autonomy/Selfish Independence- We live in a culture that prizes autonomy above most things. We are skeptical of authority and generally lazy in any sort of real binding commitments. The fleshly autonomous impulse is squarely faced down in the spiritual call to selfless love, ongoing service, and constant submission to one another out of reverence to Christ.

6. Rebellion, Refusal of accountability- I have learned over my almost 20 years serving in the church that for many a failure to commit to the church as a member is truly a sinful refusal of accountability. Membership in the local church at Four Oaks is a call to sacrificial love, biblical stewardship, moral purity, constant repentance and faith. This requires transparency, vulnerability, courage, and faith. Many are willing to pay lip service to commitment to Christ in a removed and distant sense in a 75 minute service once a week. But to live this out in genuine community throughout our lives is another thing entirely.

If you have been regularly attending this church on the Lord’s Day; covenant yourself to our family in obedience to Christ and His Word.

Tags: Church Life

posted by Erik Braun