Friday, December 21, 2012

Church Membership = Necessary?

     As of January 6th, I will be switching church membership from a large, well established church in my town to a small, relatively new church in the next town. I told this to some family friends about a week ago and the response I got was surprising. “You don’t have to switch membership. Membership doesn’t really mean anything anyways.”
     I must say that I do agree with that statement as far as the larger church goes, but based on the book, “9 Marks of a Healthy Church” by Mark Dever, membership is important and I see it as such at the church I will be moving to. At my current church the only thing being a member does for you is allows you to be on their payroll (as a custodian, office worker, childcare person, or coffee shop employee), but according to Dever—and what I see at my future home church—membership helps assure ourselves of salvation, helps evangelize the world, helps expose false gospels, helps edify the church, and glorifies God.
     I want to focus on the edify section. No, there is nowhere a perfect church, until the whole church of Jesus is safely in heaven, but some are definitely healthier than others. I will leave that statement at that and move on to the fact that all I have to offer a church is my sinful, grace saved self. Dever wrote, “Whenever you join a church, you will bring problems into that church! But don’t let that stop you—they’ve got problems already! That’s why they’re in a church. I’ve got problems; you’ve got problems. But we know that Jesus is Lord, and that His Spirit has already begun to work on those problems.” If you say your church is perfect, you’re drastically confused, because that would imply that you think you are perfect too. It’s not the case. Dever goes on to write that “church membership is our ability to…make it known that we are the responsibility of this local church.”
     This is where I want to land this thing. I attended the larger church for 18 years of my life, and have never been truly disciple by anyone. I’ve attended (“secretly”) my future church for the past year and a half and the pastors have already told me that they see me as their responsibility even though I’m not even a member yet. I need this kind of care. Jesus is the good shepherd; pastors are His undershepherds. I need to be cared for the way shepherds care for their sheep, and this is not happening at my current church, so i need to leave. Is your church providing for your spiritual needs?
     To close, I leave you a challenge. Dever wrote, “Jesus said, ‘I will build my church’ (Matt. 16:18). If Jesus is committed to the church, should we be any less committed to it?” (pg. 159). I fully agree with this statement. If you are not a member of a local church, why aren’t you? We need to be committed to Christ and we show this externally by committing to a church.

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