On Church Membership

The church I've attended consistently for the past ten years (until this summer) instituted a membership program about six months ago. You were to attend an 8 week class, make eight key commitments to the church (commitment to tithe, for example, and commitment to be active in at least one church ministry in the course of the year). If you did all this, you would be, officially, a member. If not, you were just an attender.

This came at a time when I was questioning much of the focus of church life there, so it was not hard for me to say “no thanks” to the whole deal. I didn't see myself making a commitment to tithe, for example, and told the pastor as much. Thus my relationship with the church seemed to change, and during the summer I've investigated some other ways of getting together with my fellow Christ-ians.

Anyway, the last time I mentioned church-membership and my distaste for it, one reader blatantly encouraged me to say more. Since this is a rare request indeed, I thought I'd take advantage:

I don't get church-membership.

I get that we Christ-ians are called into a body, and that the “local church” (I use the word local in its American churchy sense—the church I attended was by no means local in the common sense of “nearby”) is a visible manifestation of that body. That body is in fact a trans-local host of Jesus-followers, down through the ages, known sometimes as the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, Jesus People, the people of God, the invisible church, and on and on. So there's this big, millennia-spanning “cloud of witnesses,” and then there's this relatively small and local manifestation in the here and now, the local church.

To achieve membership in the trans-local church, you merely have to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. In other words, you see in him your sole hope of mercy, and you are, we might say with Paul, transferred from one kingdom (a kingdom of darkness, leading to death) to another (a kingdom of light, leading to life). It is all by the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the king of that kingdom, and through him eternity is ours. Stored up in heaven we have rooms prepared, crowns, glories untold awaiting us, to be enjoyed forever in the presence of God.

Nice, eh? But, wait a minute, you still might not be a member of the local church. Because the local church might just have a higher standard than heaven. Are you tithing? Are you taking part in a church-based ministry? Are you attending regularly (according to to definition of the church leadership)? In the case of the church I was attending, if you make a solemn commitment to these things and five others, you're in. If not, you're out.

Does anyone else think it odd that I can say of myself, I am a child of God, a member of his family by adoption through Christ, but I am not a member of the local church, because by their standards I haven't measure up? You see, they've raised the bar a good deal higher than Jesus did.

Is this local church membership system mandated “from above” through the Word of God, or is it an institutional convenience and nothing more? Am I, apart from local church membership, in some sense less saved than I would be if I were a member? Apart from the local church, do I lose connection to the trans-local cloud of witnesses? Does everything filter down from the universal to the personal through the local church?

I just now used the term, institutional convenience. In other words, the leadership of the local church seems to need to be able to report, we have come this far, we have this many members who have taken our classes, we have measures and yardsticks and we can tell we're succeeding (or failing) by such as these. That's our system, and if you want to be one with us, you have to get in gear.

These yardsticks are intended to measure our “commitment.” The c-word was unveiled with the membership program and began to be used frequently. Commitment. Show your commitment. Are you committed to this or that? Or are you just sitting on your hands? Come on people, it's time to show your commitment! We need to buy a new sign—are you committed to evangelism (the sign will be an evangelism tool, don't you know)? So we need $38,000, because the sign must be wifi equipped, etc.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who are doing too much, and I will give you rest." The local church says, "Come to this place called the local church, all you who are already doing too much, and we will give you even more to do."

See, once you institute these systems of behavioral measurement, you get to coaxing people to “measure up.” From membership as a measure of commitment to membership as a measure of holiness is a very small step. Do you tithe? Don't you realize that tithing is a measure of your commitment to the local church? Don't you realize the local church is the body of Christ? Hey, where's your faith, man? So what if Jesus lambasted the Pharisees for using tithing as a spiritual status-symbol, an approved measure of spiritual wellness! I mean, you don't want to be a mere attender, do you? From now on, not tithing should cause you second thoughts, pangs of guilt, and the questioning of your commitment! Do I really measure up? Is my lack of commitment showing?

Another thing: I've heard it said that for a Christ-ian all life should be ministry. But the local church likes to privilege its own organized and established ministries above all else. You have to be committed to participation in one of our church-based ministries. It simply doesn't count that you're pouring yourself out, day by day, to your children. Sorry, that just doesn't register on our membership scale. You need to come to church and fold bulletins, or pass plates, or work in the bookstore, or pull weeds in the garden, in addition to that other stuff. That way we know, we can measure it, and then we can confirm your status of membership.

As for me, I'm going to serve in the mission field to which I've been sent (my family, my town, my workplace). I'm not all that good at it, and I'm sure by any standard you can possibly name, I do not measure up. But Jesus says, I in you and you in me, and somehow that gives me hope. He's the one who measures up. I'm throwing all other yardsticks away.