We have all types of memberships in America. You can be a member of Sam’s Club or a rewards member of Chick-fil-A. You know people who are members of a local gym or the Lions Club. Membership is all around us. Yet, all of these memberships are voluntary, and, in many ways, purely transactional.
Is church membership like all of these other memberships? Or is there something fundamentally different about being a member of a church? Should churches even have membership? If yes, who should be a member? What should membership look like? Let’s take a look at these.
Most Baptist churches have some form of membership.
But why? Is it just the way we have always done it? There are two vital reasons to have local church membership.
1. Membership is Biblically Modeled.
The word “member” is used in three vital places: Romans 12:4–5; 1 Corinthians 12:12–27; and Ephesians 5:29–30. Each of these passages refers to individuals being members of the body of Christ. Paul, speaking directly to the Corinthian church, says in 1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
In Acts 6, the church is neglecting care for certain widows. Surely, the daily distribution was not for all widows in Jerusalem but specifically for those who were part of the church in Jerusalem, who were members. These widows are considered part of the church.
Both Matthew 18:15–18 and 1 Corinthians 5:1–12 deal with church discipline. When a person continues in sin, the issue must be told to the church and can eventually lead to removal from the church. In both passages, there seems to be an understanding of who is part of the church (who is in and who is out). The consequence of unrepentant sin is for the individual to be removed from the church. He or she is no longer a member of the body of Christ.
2. Membership is Practically Helpful.
The Bible is clear: Believers must gather together (Heb. 10:24–25). Membership in a local church is helpful so that there is a clear understanding of who I should gather with every week and encourage toward love and good works.
Additionally, pastors will give an account for the souls in their flock (Heb. 13:17). As a pastor at Ridgewood Church, I am greatly helped by knowing that I will give an account for the 225 other members. I know their names. I know their faces. I pray God will help me watch over their souls well.
Who Should Make Up the Membership of a Church?
So, church membership is biblically modeled and practically helpful. The next question is, “Who should be a church member?”
The biblical model for church membership is regenerate church membership, what John Hammett calls “the Baptist mark of the church” (Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches, 2nd ed, pg. 91). Some will also call this “meaningful membership.”
With regenerate church membership, a local church consists only of people who are:
- Born-again (John 3:3, 7)
- Baptized as a believer (Acts 2:38–41; 8:12)
- Following Jesus (John 8:12; 10:4, 25–27)
- Committed to the church (Heb. 10:25)
The acronym I have shared with our church to remember these four is that when we practice regenerate church membership, we are Big Baptists For Churches.
The term church primarily entails assembling those called out by and living for God. Local congregations consist of “saints” or “holy ones,” a term used over 60 times in the New Testament (Hammett, 39–40, 43; cf. Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:2).
Moreover, the universal church, comprising all Christians in all times and all places, consists of only believers. Why would the local church have a different standard? Simply put, the local church should be made up of believers.
Churches will not be able to assess perfectly who is a believer and who is not. The New Testament anticipates that local churches will inadvertently bring those with false confessions of faith into membership. Church discipline is the Lord’s provision to remove those who claim to be a brother or sister but live contrary to that claim.
The purity of the church matters. Why would Jesus (Matt. 18:15–18) or Paul (1 Cor. 5:1–13) encourage removing unrepentant people from the church if the church is not supposed to be a pure body of genuine believers? The members make up the body of Christ (Rom. 12:4–5) and are called saints (Eph. 4:12). Therefore, the local church should practice regenerate church membership.
Why Do Baptists Demand Regenerate Church Membership?
Regenerate church membership means the covenant community consists exclusively of believers. Augustine (A.D. 354–430) believed in the corpus permixtum, a church body mixed with believers and unbelievers — wheat mixed with tares.
In the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt. 13:24–20), the wheat and the tares grow together. At harvest, they will be separated. Augustine incorrectly thought that the field where the wheat and tares grow was the church. Instead, the field is the world — Jesus says as much (Matt. 13:28). Believers will live, work, play, and function alongside unbelievers in the world. However, churches are not to be mixed with wheat and tares.
This practice of regenerate church membership is essential for Baptist churches because we practice congregational church governance where the congregation has the final say on the most critical issues. We can say that the buck stops with the members. They have the ultimate responsibility. Therefore, we do not want unbelievers who lack the indwelling of the Holy Spirit influencing the direction of the church. Or stated positively, we want believers filled with the Holy Spirit to make the trajectory-shaping decisions for the local church.
How Does Regenerate Church Membership Practically Work?
- A church practicing regenerate church membership should consider the following:
- Hold a new members class where newcomers get to know the church: its mission, its values, and its ministry.
- Conduct membership interviews where the church, typically represented by the pastors, gets to know a newcomer, discerns if he or she has made a credible profession of faith, and learns if the person has been baptized as a believer.
- Have new members sign a church covenant for accountability and encouragement (for more on church covenants, see chapter 5 of Hammett’s Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches or the 9Marks Ministries website at www.9marks.org. 9Marks is wholly devoted to helping develop healthy local churches.
- Keep an active membership roster. I grew up in a church with thousands of people on the membership roll and a few hundred in attendance on a Sunday. Something was amiss there.
- Encourage members to attend regularly.
- Acknowledge that church membership has certain privileges and responsibilities (see No. 3 in this article for a list of some of those, https://www.9marks.org/answer/what-meaningful-membership/).
- Practice church discipline.
Regenerate Church Membership Promotes Long-Term Health
My prayer and hope is that Baptist churches can encourage one another toward the practice of regenerate church membership for the sake of the health and long-term gospel ministry of each of our local churches.
— Aaron Markham serves as a pastor of Ridgewood Church in Greer. He is a graduate of Furman University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.