Membership Ideas

Ideas and thoughts about membership submitted by my readers

 

I have been doing a series on church membership and getting lots of great ideas from my readers.  I am impressed with the depth of insight my mail shows—there are some significant thing here that should be considered by anyone who cares about membership matters.  If you need an “agenda of ideas” to consider—let’s make one together—add your ideas here by emailing Keith Drury to get your ideas added here.  Just give thoughts and ideas for denominational leaders and pastors to consider—to widen the circle of thought about this subject.

 

1.     Forget “membership” altogether—anyone who attends should be considered a part of the church.  All we really need is “leadership” a smaller, low image, highly committed group who leads and decides in the church.  (By far the most common response so far)

 

2.     Membership requirements should have no objective legalistic measurable requirements—it should be about a loving lifestyle and not any one kind of behavior—including homosexuality.

 

3.     The most important thing I’ve ever heard about membership you said to me once: “We have got to divide our membership requirements between the “ideal-we-work-toward” stuff and the “minimum-we-require-to-get in/stay in.”  You are absolutely right—we confuse people by having both.  We should label them clearly—and I think the “minimum” should be exactly that—“minimal.”

 

4.     The term “membership” is so nauseating to my generation that I can’t believe you are even having a discussion on it.

 

5.      Membership rules are the way dead people control the behavior of the people still alive.  We should have automatic “sunset laws” on all membership requirements—and start with a blank sheet of paper every four years like “zero based budgeting.”

 

6.      The idea that a church or denomination could control the behavior of an individual is so quaint—where are these people living—in 1855?

 

7.      All membership rules beyond the Apostle’s Creed should be local—anything more is asking for trouble.

 

8.     Your very first article pointed out the reality—church membership is like joining the Masons—it is something old people in mostly small towns used to do.  Membership is deceased—let it be buried.

 

9.     What you are struggling with isn’t membership at all—it is the fact that denominations no longer exist in any sort of way where they have common agreement and can bind any behavior on their members.  Denominations exist for ministerial pension plans and nothing much else.

 

10.       "Membership" as a concept does seem to be as out of style as a "Members Only" jacket these days.  However, in some way we must re-discover and re-language the concept of membership.  Perhaps we can come out on the other end of the membership valley with a pattern in the church that helps people publicly identify themselves with Christ, increases belonging to the church, and provides something for those not yet following Christ to reach for.  Of course, we may re-discover that Baptism should do all of these things instead.

 

11.  Membership should NOT be forgotten entirely. However, some of our current requirements should be dropped. Personally, I have always viewed membership similar to marriage. It's the difference between living with the woman I know call my wife or actually making a public, long term commitment to her in marriage. Yes some marriages don't work out. That is not my problem. My view of marriage is final.. as is my view of membership. I join a local church body and intend to stay there through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 

 

12.   Membership is a very public way of confessing a certain set of beliefs. It forces people to take a very open and public stand in the midst of their peers. Reactions against membership seem to be based on a very westernized individualistic drive that is not necessarily sanctioned by Scripture. Membership, when done right, promotes the idea of belonging and often contextualizes the requirements of the Early Church into a modern context. To throw away the idea of membership would be to strip the church of one of her most ancient and beautiful traditions. I for one am not ready to do that yet.   

 

13.  I agree with # 12 and wonder where some of these other people are coming from. (You didn't make some of them up yourself just to stir people up, did you? I hope none of these people are Wesleyan theology students. I remember a comment by Chester Cochrane, HC Wilson's surrogate father after HC's own father passed away. We were having a debate in our very 'Reformed Baptist' congregation about changes, most of which have occurred and he asked the question, "Why are we getting to be as smart as the Methodists in 1910?" That was back in the 1960's. I'm older now than when he made that statement and I think his point is well made. We will lose it. I don't want hem, hair, hose and hellivision again. But I don't want to include everything either.) We will come to the day when there will be few holiness preachers among us.

 

14. The boundaries of what marks a Christian off in belief and practice is surely very broad--so broad in fact that it probably includes not only Christians from all churches (from Catholic to Orthodox to Baptist), but perhaps even from marginal groups like the Seventh Day Adventists (Jesus Only?).  So generic a group would dilute all the specifics so much that you would have "no flavor" Christianity.  The strength of denominational "flavors" is not in their exclusivity (the past) but in the way they "specialize" on certain aspects of the great kaleidoscope of truth (the future).  It is unity in diversity that is the power of distinct identity, not unity in monotone (the current non-denominational trend) or unity in isolation (the past separatist trend).

 

 

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Keith Drury   January, 2005