The case for church membership
June 26, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
Here’s a question I’ve been knocking around with a brother at work: Is
the doctrine (requirement) of church membership biblical? If not, then
the arguments for church membership will have to rest on practical or
traditional reasons, and it will be up to the individual believer to
opt in or out. I'd like to argue, however, that a strong biblical case
for church membership can be
made.
First of all, I acknowledge that there's no explicit command to join a
local church as an official member. But the lack of explicit teaching
certainly doesn't mean that a particular doctrine isn't valid. The
doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is nowhere explicit but nearly
everywhere implicit. (Of course, the relationships between the
different aspects of the doctrine of church membership are certainly
not as mysterious [in a non-fideistic sense] as they are between the
persons in the Trinity!)
The most important verse in which church membership is implicit is Heb.
13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping
watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”
Earlier, in v7, we find out that the leaders are “those who spoke to
you the word of God,” which rules out any kind of civil authority. And
elsewhere (1 Pet. 5:1-2, for example), we see that elders are the ones
designated
to provide this kind of leadership (i.e., designated to “shepherd the
flock”). So my first point would be that it's difficult to obey and
submit to your leaders if you don't have any leaders! Now clearly there
are all sorts of people in our lives that offer spiritual guidance and
exercise spiritual authority—but Heb. 13:17 seems to be talking
specifically about church elders. Which brings me to my second point
…
I find it difficult to believe that Paul would go to the trouble of
laying out the detailed requirements for church leadership (in 1
Timothy 3 and Titus 1) if church membership wasn't a big deal. So
between these two passages (Heb. 13 and 1 Tim. 3/Tit. 1), we have
requirements for both church leaders (husband of one wife, etc.) and
church members (obey and submit to your leaders)—which seems to
indicate that local church membership, if not absolutely required, was
the ideal (or at least the assumption) and should therefore be the goal
for us.
Another crucial reason for church membership is discipline. In a
nutshell, church discipline involves the authority to excommunicate a
member in the hopes that he will repent and be received back into the
body of Christ. There are those (let’s call them “membership skeptics”)
who insist that this is possible without the confines of official
membership—but how? If I'm persistently sinning in such a way so as to
require discipline, yet I don't belong to a church, then from what can
I be excommunicated? And who will do the excommunicating? It would
seem, then, that to the extent that church discipline is mandated in
the Bible, church membership is also mandated in the
Bible.
And finally, there is ample evidence of the “like-mindedness” of the
early believers (Acts 4:32 “Now the full number of those who believed
were of one heart and soul”; Col. 2:2 “that their hearts may be
encouraged, being knit together in love”; Eph. 4:3 “eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”). Practically (but
biblically!) speaking, it seems difficult to determine who is of like mind (i.e.,
who is of one heart and soul) without some sort of membership
requirement (which usually includes a formal confession of faith or
doctrinal statement). There are also passages—Rom. 16:1; Ph'p. 4:3;
Col. 4:9—in which Christians appear to have been publicly known to be
visibly connected with a particular local body, indicating an
expectation toward local church membership.
In sum: there are (at least) several key passages in Scripture that
imply or assume some sort of church membership. Although I’m not trying
to make any claims about the specific policies or traditions that might
characterize a particular church’s membership practices (in fact, I’ve
been deliberately vague—“goal,” “expectation,” etc.—about what
requirements a biblical doctrine of church membership might impose upon
us) I do think that the case laid out above has some implications for
how (or whether) we go about finding and joining a church.
Related posts:
- Epistemology and the Emerging Church (EC BIOLA #6)
- Is Church for Non-Believers?
- Dan Kimball: A Revolution in Church and Teaching (EC BIOLA #1)
- The End of the Emerging Church
- The Corporate Church- An Emerging Church Update
- Is Church Necessary?
Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Religion (General), Theology
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June 27th, 2005 at 7:52 pm
Garrett, interesting post. Church membership is not a popular idea in West L.A., but I think if more churches adopted it, there would be less of a problem with transience. People continually wander from church to church here and don't develop any roots or deep relationships.
I think of it being like marriage: when people make a formal commitment to a church they are much less likely to leave on a whim, and more likely to learn to work out differences with others–developing character and having a greater long-term impact on their communities. Church is like a family, and I don't think we do as well when we're just “living together.”
This isn't an argument from Scripture, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway.