Meaningless. Harmful. Rude. I’ve heard some say that joining a local church is meaningless. Why would I join a local church, if I can get the church from the TV? I’m a good person and believe something about Jesus, so why would I join a church? These are a few of the questions they ask. I’ve heard the same people say being a member of a local church is harmful. They don’t want their spiritual growth to be hindered by those who they deem spiritually slower. I’ve heard others say church membership is rude. Church membership and a formal list of those who are a part of a church take from the intimacy of the community. The feelings of those excluded people will be hurt.
Our culture emphasizes the individual. It repulses absolute truth claims and institutions that make them. The local church, therefore, is often slandered or neglected. Even many Christians treat the Christian life as an entirely individual endeavor. They might attend church, but only minimally. They desire privacy and hate accountability. They elevate their opinion and ignore or malign truth claims that contradict it. To these types of Christians, the role of the pastor and worship service is to entertain them. The role of fellow members is to shower them with praise and ignore the sinful tendencies in their life. Their definition of church membership is occasionally attending Sunday morning worship and doing their own thing Sunday after 12:00 pm to next Sunday at 11:00 am. This approach permeates my generation; even those who grew up in the church. They witnessed the reckless approach to church membership of their parents and decided that church membership and attendance is unimportant.
Therefore, today we continue the series I have titled Committed Community. In this series, we will come to the Bible and investigate what God says about church. This post will cover two things. I will provide us with a definition of church membership and give six reasons why church membership is necessary.
To begin with, Jonathan Leeman defined church membership like this,
Church membership is a covenant union between a particular church and a Christian, a covenant that consists of the church’s affirmation of the Christian’s gospel profession, the church’s promise to give oversight to the Christian, and the Christian’s promise to gather with the church and submit to its oversight. [note]Jonathan Leeman, The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010), 217.[/note]
- Church membership is a covenant: That is, it’s a solemn agreement between a Christian and a local church.
- The church affirms the Christian’s profession of faith in Christ: That is, by extending church membership to an individual, the church is saying, “As far as we can tell, you’re a Christian. We’re putting our seal of approval on your claim to follow Christ.”
- The church promises to oversee the Christian’s discipleship: This comes through teaching, preaching, the pastors’ oversight, and the mutual building up which all members of the church are to engage in (Eph. 4:11-16).
- The Christian promises to assemble with regularly and submits to the church: By committing to a church through membership, the Christian vows to gather with this church consistently and to submit to its authority and teaching.
Last post I showed that joining a local church is biblical. So, join a local church. For the remainder of this post, I will provide you with five reasons for joining a local church.
First, join a local church to protect yourself. I am sure there have been times in your Christian walk where we have doubted your salvation. Joining a church does not save us, but joining church helps us make sure that we have been saved. Let’s look at the words of Jesus:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him…If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…You are my friends if you do what I command you…If you know these things blessed are you if you do them (Jn. 14:21; 15:10, 14; 13:17).
There are several other times where Jesus declares He expects obedience from His disciples. When you join a church, you are asking your brothers and sisters to hold you accountable. They are to examine whether what you say is consistent with how you live. It is easy to fool ourselves into believing that we are saved. Jesus demonstrates this when he says,
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness (Matt. 7:21-23).
Joining a local church gives us extra eyes to ensure that we have not given ourselves false assurance. Church membership without accountability is not valid church membership.
Along with providing us with extra eyes to assure us of our salvation, joining a church also helps us to persevere in the faith. Hebrews is a book written to suffering Christians considering leaving the Christian faith. In Hebrews 3 the author tells them to exhort one another that they may not fall for the deceitfulness of sin. Furthermore, in 1 John we are provided with warning signs to keep us from forsaking the faith we once claimed. One way of knowing we have gone the wrong way and behaved like a nonbeliever is by not loving our brothers and sisters in Christ (1 Jn. 4:20). Both Hebrews and 1 John tell us that Christian fellowship is a reliable tool to defend us from falling into sin. We can ensure our love for Jesus’ disciples by committing ourselves to them in church membership. Hillary Clinton’s election slogan is true when applied to the church; We are stronger together.
To apply this principle, we need to take church membership seriously. We need to ask ourselves something. Why have we joined Vista Baptist Church? Have we joined because we assumed is the right thing to do or because we want fellow Christians to help us better pursue Christ? We must invite our brothers and sisters to speak the truth in our lives. Welcome encouragement, advice, correction, and criticism. The key to biblical church membership is for each member to submit themselves to each other. Ask one person in this church of the same gender to speak the truth into your life.
I will give you two examples of this from a previous church. The pastor mentored other men who were in the process of becoming pastors. I was in this group. He allowed me to preach on a Wednesday night. After I had got through the sermon, he came up to me with a hand-written note. In it, there was encouragement and advice for future sermons. It was the first time I preached before a seasoned pastor and rather than hammering or flattering me, he was loving and firm. This type of accountability can be replicated amongst the laity too. At that same church, I was mentored by one of the deacons. Every time I met with him I walked away both encouraged and humbled. He would say things he noticed in me that were concerning and he would also tell me that He could see Christ working in my life. This type of relationship only happened because I welcomed it.
Second, join a local church to encourage fellow believers. Joining a church helps combat the sinful individualism of our culture. We all are told by the prevailing culture to put ourselves at the center. This self-centered approach cannot be the attitude of the Christian. Refusal to join a church or to break the vows of the membership pledge for personal preference, inconvenience, or misplaced priorities is not living in a manner worthy of the gospel. Paul in Philippians tells us to count others more highly than ourselves and to imitate the humility of Christ, who being the perfect Son of God became a man and bore the punishment for sin on the cross (Phil. 2). Paul elsewhere tells the Galatians to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2). We are to serve one another as Christ serves us, sacrificially.
One way to do this is by merely being present when the church meets and assisting when the church has needs. In Hebrews chapter 10 we come across a passage that is called the “lettuce patch of the Bible for it contains many “Let us” commands. Verses 24 and 25 encourage the work of benefiting fellow believers. It says, “24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” The author of Hebrews encourages Christians, whose lives are threatened if they meet, to meet. The reason he tells them that instead of neglecting fellowship, that they must encourage one another to follow Christ faithfully. God expects us to meet together even under the threat of persecution. It follows, therefore, that we should not neglect meeting where there is not the risk of abuse. If death threats aren’t excused for ignoring the local church, then nothing is.
Do you encourage other Christians? Do you help them to cling to Christ in suffering? Do you remind them that the Spirit of God dwells within them giving them the ability to say no to sin? The Hebrews passage above tells us to consider how to stir one another to love and good works and later to encourage one another. Stirring and encouraging are similar. They both require you to be in proximity of and speak to the person. Therefore, to apply this principle in our church and individual lives, we must make a habit of encouraging one another. Choose one person, who is a member of this church, and help them in their walk with Christ. Ask them how you could specifically pray for them. Tell them—if it’s true—that you have seen them grow spiritually. If it is a deacon, then thank them for their service. Look for ways to serve each other.
If you are a member of this church and don’t encourage other members, then repent. Confess your sin to God, ask for His help, and begin serving your brothers and sisters. It is that simple. If you need more information on how you can serve this church, then ask, and I will find you something to do. Join a local church to protect yourself and to encourage fellow believers.
Third, join a local church to evangelize the unbelieving world. Committing to one another enables us to reach the amount and the types of people that we wouldn’t be able to reach on our own. The church in Philippi was an example of this. They collaborated and raised funds that helped the apostle Paul take the gospel to unreached people groups (Phil. 4:10-20). By coming together, we may fellowship and witness the truth of the gospel with people who complement our weakness (see Ephesians 4:1-16). Being a member of the local church also put us in a place where more mature Christians and church leaders can equip us to better proclaim the gospel to nonbelievers (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Lastly, we witness to the world just by our regular fellowshipping and worshipping together. At times God uses just that to draw unbelievers to himself. For example, this is seen in Acts 2 when the church began. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, the Lord’s Supper, prayer, and service. At the end of this passage, it says that the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved (Acts 2:42-47).
As a church member, there are several ways we can assist in the evangelism of the unbelieving world. Here are three:
- We can give additional funds to missionaries. This giving of other resources does not replace our tithe but is in addition to it. We can provide funds to the cooperative program which is a remarkable way of partnering with other SBC churches to reach the lost. We may also give to other missionaries or mission organizations we know that are taking the gospel to the lost.
- We could become a missionary and request this church’s assistance in providing us with training and financial support needed to be a missionary. If you’re young, then you have more flexibility to do a thing like this. But, that does not mean it is impossible for a matured individual or couple to enter the mission field late in life. The International Mission Board and North American Mission Board both have opportunities to become a long-term missionary. If you want to get your feet wet, I would suggest going on a short-term mission trip.
- We could engage in urban and college ministry. The beauty of the United States of America is that the nations are coming to us. This reality means that we can take trips to cities and colleges where there are large groups of immigrants from unreached people groups. There are many other ways in which being a church member helps you to participate in Christ call to make disciples of all nations, but the three I have mentioned are good places to start.
- We can pray for unreached people groups and the missionaries God sends to them. I hope such a practice will become commonplace in our church, homes, and individual quiet times through the weekly prayer grams. Visit Joshua Project or Operation World for more information on praying for peoples and nations.
Fourth, join a local church to defend the gospel. The world believes that Christians are fun-sucking, self-righteous, hypocritical bigots. By being an active member of our church, we show them this is not true. For by being a member of the church we acknowledge our need for accountability. We also have enjoyable times serving Christ with our fellow church members. We show that ultimately we are not concerned about our opinions but fulfilling the call of Christ (Acts 2:42-47; 1 Cor. 12:12-31; Eph. 4:1-16). By mutually loving and being loved by our brothers and sister, we show the world that they have misunderstood Christianity and the gospel. Biblical church membership demonstrates our need for Christ.
Furthermore, being a member of a church helps us defend the gospel from false teaching and false teachers. Where the world is ignorant of the gospel, false teachers pervert it. In Jude, we witness this. The type of false teaching that Jude addressed taught that the grace of God in the gospel means that we can live however we want. This notion isn’t true. The grace of God that saves us also transforms us. Being a member of a church provides us with the opportunity to defend the gospel from these perverters of the truth. It also gives us the opportunity help those who have been led astray by false teachers.
Today we face both a corrupt world system and ravenous wolves in sheep clothing. To silence the world, we must love each other, be honest about our sin, and communicate our need for Christ. To challenge the false teacher, we must know the faith, teach the faith to less mature believers, and denounce all signs of perversion. To assist the stray, we must enter their lives, show them their error, and turn them back to Christ. Being a member of a local church provides you with the tools and relationships to defend the gospel.
Fifth, join a local church to glorify God. John Piper is right when he says, “[To Glorify God] means feeling and thinking and acting in ways that reflect his greatness, that make much of God, that give evidence of the supreme greatness of all his attributes and the all-satisfying beauty of his manifold perfections.”[note]John Piper, “Glorifying God. . . Period,” Desiring God, July 15, 2013, section goes here, accessed January 06, 2018, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/glorifying-god-period.[/note] This definition is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians. He told them to do everything to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Moreover, Peter meant the same thing when he says, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet. 2:12). By our good deeds, we reflect the greatness of God. If this can happen in our lives individually, then it can happen in our church corporately. We show the work of God in our lives by the way that we love each other. Christ teaches this when He says, “34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:34-35). We show the world that we are disciples of Christ, by how we love other Christians. The easiest way to engage with and extend love to other Christians is by joining a local church. Jesus, elsewhere, says that he would build his church (Matt 16:18). Paul says that the church is the body and bride of Christ (1 Cor. 12: Eph. 5). If we turn to the book of Revelation, we will find in the early chapters that Jesus speaks to seven local churches calling most them to repentance. Why would he do this unless he cares for local churches? We should care about the church because Jesus does. Committing to a local church by becoming a member glorifies God.
Outsiders mock the local church and insiders neglect it. Being a church member to most Southern Baptists—62 percent—is like giving morphine to someone with cancer. It doesn’t solve the problem, but it at least makes you feel a little better. This attitude is far from accurate there are real reasons to be an active member of a local church. I have provided five: Join a local church to protect yourself, encourage fellow Christians, evangelize the unbelieving world, defend the gospel, and glorify God. We, church, need to take church membership seriously if we don’t, we fail to honor God.