Church Membership

I almost forgot another essential reason: Church membership is the class people take if they want to be able to vote at business meetings. The most common voting item at a business meeting for our church is voting on a new board member. This is important, because the board is supposed to represent the people to the lead pastor. But, if people don't understand how things work, how will they be able to vote effectively? Thus, Membership Class.

Thanks!

Stop Dating the Church is an excellent book that addresses this question. I believe it is about commitment (As well as agreement with what Mason has already stated). It is similar to a marriage. I made a commitment to my husband and I made the vows, have papers and such to show my commitment. I want the church that I attend to know that I have made a commitment to them. I have committed to helping further the kingdom with them. I have committed to attend regularly and to be held accountable as well as hold my brothers and sisters accountable. I think I would be concerned if someone was in leadership and they weren't a member of the church - just b/c I would want to know if they believe the same core doctrine that the church I belong to does or will they teach something contrary - and contrary to God's word. Being a member helps to prevent such thing from happening - false teaching - that doesn't mean it won't happen, but it helps to prevent it from happening. From my experience, church membership has been a very positive thing - I am confident that my brothers and sisters 'have my back' - I can count on my church family for support, etc - not that that can't happen without membership, but it is helpful. I love my church family, therefore I am confident in making a commitment to them. We are all sinners, we all fall short of the glory of God, but we practice GRACE.

Originally Posted by lynnbeau

Stop Dating the Church is an excellent book that...

Thanks for your input and sharing that perspective.

I guess there isn't a book called "Don't Marry Your Church".

I jokingly said "I guess there isn't a book called "Don't Marry Your Church".
The more I think about it, the more I think there should be. After all, the Church is already married - To Jesus Christ, I don't want to steal his girl!
I will "be" the church in the sense that I am part of it, but I'm not going to marry the church in the sense of signing a formal membership contract. We will remain "just friends".

In one sense, you need to be a member of the Church to be saved. If you're not a member of the Body of Christ, how can you have His life in you? Think about it, if you cut off one of your own members, it'll shrivel up and die. So you need to be baptized into the one Body in the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), partake of the one bread as one Body (1 Cor. 10:17), profess the One Lord, one faith, one Baptism (Eph 4:4-5). Like Noah's ark, you gotta be on board (as the Bible says, like Noah's ark in the flood, Baptism now saves (1 Peter 3:20-21), and as I mentioned earlier, we are baptized into one Body, apart from which, one cannot be saved--so the ark and the Body have the same significance in this regard).

In regards to filling out a form or registering at a local church, it can be helpful on a practical level, but I don't think it's some immutable commandment from God. In the Catholic Church there's no universal rule about registering, but it seems common in North America to encourage it for various practical reasons (such as budgeting, helping to determine the distribution of priests and deacons--a local church known to have more people will be more likely to get more help than one with less-- etc.).

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Offically joining a church, I wouldn't say it's absolutly necessary but the scriptures are clear that God wants you to be in a relationship with other Christians and come together to worship him.

So at the very least you should regularly attend a church.

And if you are regularly attending a church for a while and you intend to in the future. . . why not join it offically?

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"Many Christians suppose that it makes no difference which church group a Christian joins, and they act accordingly. When they come to a place where any kind of Protestant church is found, they join it as members. There are people who were successively Reformed, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, depending upon the place where they lived. And we should not be surprised when this happens among the sects, for they are not certain about their distinctive doctrines, because they are not grounded in God's Word." - Franz Pieper

In America membership seems very common. I realize its due to the fact there are thousands of diffrent views out there when it comes to being a christian. But I think its overboard really. One pastor told me they have a membership and ask questions so they don't get members who have diffrent views arguing with others and forcing their view on others.

The church I go to I love alot. But I will never "join" it. I don't believe in memberships. And whats funny is the church is still full of people with diffrent views anyways. Most all of the members are pretrib people, but the pastor is midtrib.

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Pearls before swine!
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