Remembering Membership - What do you think?

Last week I performed a wedding for a cute couple in my church. During the festivities I managed to speak to several friends of the couple that I had never met before. In our conversations I was asked a question in which I had no ‘on the spot’ answer.

The question was, Why do we need to become members of a church?

In other words, why do I have to make an official commitment? How official is the commitment to joining a church? Why isn’t it obvious that me showing up each week means I’m devoted?

I thought about this question and this was my immediate response.
I know for some people salvation only comes through the church and I respect that opinion. Baptist Heritage seems to carry more of a soul freedom response that suggests salvation is not through the church but through the individual. The church is the housing place for those individual souls. It is a place for souls to work together to become the hands and feet of Christ, to partner with God in the ‘ongoing creation of the world.'
I’m not satisfied with this answer because my gut tells me there is more to being members of the church. There is a commitment and there has to be a verbal response for why church is important.

I have thought about this conundrum all week. I am not sure how to word it but here is my new-and-improved, thought-through answer:
It seems to me that in joining a church you leave home and hometown to join a larger world. The whole world is your new neighborhood and all who dwell therein –black, white, yellow, red, stuffed and starving, smart and stupid, mighty and lowly, criminal and self-respecting, American or Russian – all become your sisters and brothers in the new family formed in Jesus. By joining a church you declare your individuality in the most radical way in order to affirm community on the widest possible scale. (This is paraphrased from several sources by Henri Nouwen, Frederick Buechner, and William Sloane Coffin)
This response to me is better. What do you think? Why is church membership important to you?

Comments

Adam Bean said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
August 7, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Adam Bean said…
Honestly, as I just recently realized, I have never "joined a church."

I was born into one, and grew up there for 18 years, but never did any act of declaring membership. In college I attended a handful of different churches at various periods, but never quite felt like doing the "student membership" thing. In grad school I have been attending one church the entire time, and have even filled small staff positions there, but have still never joined, and am technically not a "member." Originally I just didn't want to go up front again. Now I feel that I am deliberately resisting, since this church, progressive in many other respects, has an irksome "closed membership" policy where only those who were baptized in exactly the way we like it to be done are admitted. Sure, the like of those improperly (or, gasp, not at all) immersed are welcome to attend, commune, and serve, but they are not permitted membership. Thus I am reluctant to claim for myself what would be denied for others.

So yes, as a 24 year old seminary student, I have never joined a church, and am not sure if or when I will.
August 7, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Most Difficult Parable Ever

Image
Theologian N.T. Wright finds the parable of the fig tree to be quite strange.  He says, “Jesus' warning in Luke 13 is at once amplified by this almost humorous, yet in fact quite sinister, parable of the fig tree in the vineyard.” And it is sinister.  It’s a hard pill to take.  Jesus' parable goes like this: A man has as fig tree planted in his vineyard.  One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs.  He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree.  For three years, I've come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing.  So just go ahead and cut it down.  Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?” The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir.  Give me one more years working with it.  I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it.  If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”  (Luke 13:5-9, The Voice) But how is it sinister?
Read more

The Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long

Image
This Christmas I was moved by the words of Frederick Buechner.  For my last blog of the year I offer to you his wisdom rather than my own ramblings.  I hope it does for you what it continues to do for me. Frederick Buechner says in his book The Faces of Jesus: On the dark bulwark of Elsinore, Shakespeare has Marcellus and Haratio reflecting on Christ in the opening scene of Hamlet: Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairly takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time These lines from the first scene of Hamlet in a sense say it all.  We tend to think time is just progression . . . as moment following moment, day following day, in relentless flow, the kind of time a clock or calendar measures.  But we experience time als
Read more

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Image
In the late 1300s Geoffrey Chaucer coined the phrase, “All good things must come to an end.” This phrase means more to me right now than it ever has before. This week is my last week as pastor at Union Baptist Church in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Out of all my accomplishments, opportunities, and memories, pastoring UBC has been one of, if not, the best. For three years I have traveled alongside this community of grace through celebrations such as birthday parties, weddings, worship services, homecomings, Fall Festivals, baptisms, and so much more. I have also traveled alongside more sincere moments of pain, tragedy, and anguish; for I have counseled families through deaths, hardships, work-related problems, spirit-related inquiries, sadness, depression, anger, surgeries, confusion, and even wonderment. Collectively, these shared stories, these real and emotionally significant memories, have shaped who I am and how I see myself in the world. This decision to leave UBC do
Read more