Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - Church Membership

Series: What Are We Doing Here?
Sermon: Church Membership - Ephesians 3:1-13 (2.2.25)

The vast majority of churches today and throughout history have practiced some version of church membership. Formally committing to a local gathering of God’s global family is an important aspect in the discipleship journey.

By joining a church, we commit to other redeemed sinners and show the world that Christ has indeed reconciled us both to God and to each other. It’s not enough to merely have Christian friends with whom we occasionally gather - friends we pick and choose according to our own tastes. What truly displays the gospel is when we commit to love and care for a group of people that includes folks utterly unlike us. We display the gospel when we gather each week to serve people who sometimes share only one thing in common with us: Jesus.

The Apostle Paul in his letters to the brand new church in the years after Jesus’s life and personal ministry emphasized the familial nature of the community of believers. Though they came from a variety of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds, Paul said the church is a family because its members share the most important core identifying characteristic: they believed in and followed the crucified and risen Messiah Jesus.

“...so in Christ,” Paul writes in Romans 12:5, “we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”

And in Ephesians 2:19, he says “...you are members of God’s very own family...and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.”
 
The example set for us by the New Testament Christians is that faith was always practiced in group settings, together in communities centered around the truth and grace of the gospel. The New Testament knows nothing of rogue believers who are saved and committed to Christ but remain uncommitted to the people of Christ. When we commit to the Jesus-filled life, we agree to prioritize this core characteristic over our other identities and personal preferences.  

Though we may sometimes be tempted, this means we cannot live out our faith alone. We must do it together, in a church family; rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn (Romans 12:15), bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), encouraging one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11) toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24), devoted to one another (Romans 12:10).

A survey of the New Testament reveals quickly that the Christian life is not merely about affirming the right doctrines or about pursuing individual, isolated virtues. Instead, scripture consistently shows that the Christian life revolves around the local church - a structured community.

In short, to be a Christian is to belong to a church. Church membership is how the world knows who represents Jesus. Church membership does not save, but it does reflect salvation.

So, all of that is well and good, but is there biblical support for church membership? I think so, and I think the argument for it can be summed up with these points:

1. Christians possess a special power and corporate identity when formally assembled.

Paul writes that when the Corinthian church is “assembled…the power of our Lord Jesus is present” (1 Corinthians 5:4). Later in the letter he refers to when they “come together as a church” (1 Corinthians 11:18), indicating that they are somehow more “a church” when together than apart. This gathered assembly, it seems, has the power to do things, to make decisions and pronouncements on behalf of Jesus.  

2. Christians are commanded to separate themselves from the world. 

Paul does not forbid relationships with non-Christians, of course, but he does tell Christians not to do anything that might risk compromising their primary identity as believers. When he says in 2nd Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” he is not just talking about marriage, but how all believers should view their formal associations.

Just as God wanted a clear line between Israel and other nations, so God requires a clear, bright line between the church and the world: “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” (2nd Corinthians 6:17, referencing Isaiah 52:11 and Ezekiel 20:34,41)

3. The authority and faithfulness of the local church shape and orient the lives of its members. 

Christian life in the 1st century generally consisted of the following steps: individuals were baptized, added to the church, and then gathered to hear the apostles' teaching.

From there, the believers structured their lives around other members of the church: their meals, their praying, their schedules, their financial and property decisions, their provision for widows and orphans, etc.

Their belief was made public, it was officially recognized and they were formally included in the family of God, and then it was developed through teaching, worship, and fellowship.

4. Christian leaders are responsible for specific Christ-followers.

Peter tells elders to “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care” (1 Peter 5:2). And he says something similar to the elders in Ephesus: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28).

These metaphors were not chosen haphazardly. A shepherd does not tend (at least as a matter of priority) to stray sheep or sheep from another shepherd’s flock; he tends to the sheep in his flock. So it is with pastor-shepherds.

Church membership allows elders and ministers to know for whom they are responsible.

5. Christians are responsible to submit to specific leaders.    

The author of Hebrews writes: “Obey your leaders and submit to them” (Hebrews 13:17). Clearly, believers must know who their leaders are. Paul writes to Timothy: “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor” (1 Timothy 5:17). Christian followers must, then, know whom to honor.

In terms of the example set by the early churches, Acts 2:37-47 indicates that these local groups kept a record of those who professed Christ and been filled with the Holy Spirit, and the churches tracked their growth. There seems to be an awareness in Romans 16:1-16 of who is included as members of that specific church.  

Perhaps the most persuasive argument for the biblical understanding of church membership is not explicit scriptural passages or examples (there aren’t Bible verses that say “Church membership is good! Here’s what it is and how to do it…” ), but the implicit consequences of the teaching of the apostles when it comes to the local church.

Paul tells the church in Corinth to “expel the wicked person from among you” (1 Corinthians 5:13). To be expelled implies that the person belonged in the first place. The exact nature of that belonging isn’t spelled out, but some type of church membership is a reasonable conclusion here.

In his letter to Titus, Paul says to give a divisive person two warnings, and then “have nothing to do with them” (Titus 3:10). John talks about false teachers who “went out from us” because “they did not really belong to us” (1 John 2:19).

The New Testament writings seem to indicate that local churches knew who belonged to their body, and who did not. Members of a family know who their brothers and sisters are. If the church is like a family, as Paul says it is, it is reasonable to expect membership to be not just encouraged but expected.  

If you’re ready to take the next step in your faith and commit to the MCC church family - or you just want to learn more about MCC and how we do things - please join us for our new Basics: Meaningful Membership at MCC class starting Sunday, February 16 after church. The class will run for four weeks, and we’ll dive into Who We Are, What We Believe, Where We Come From, and How We Love Each Other.

Sign up HERE

I hope to see you there!