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By joining a local church through membership, you’re making invisible realities visible. You’re identifying with God’s people, accepting spiritual accountability, and committing to be obedient to a whole category of Jesus’ commands. You’re ensuring your personal safety and the safety of others by not fighting spiritual battles alone. You’re filling a role among God's people that only you can fill, fulfilling part of your purpose.
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Of all the topics to read about, church membership might not seem like the most interesting or even important. It's not the most popular or trendy topic.
The idea of church membership likely evokes a range of responses.
Maybe you hear the term church membership and respond indifferently. You might reason that, if the term is not even explicitly mentioned in the Bible, then it's probably not all that important.
Maybe you hear those words and feel a twinge of anxiety. Perhaps the idea of "joining" church seems scary or even dangerous. Perhaps, you’ve been burned by other Christians or leaders in the past and can't fathom the idea of committing to "join" a church where others might be able to manipulate, mislead, or even spiritually abuse them.
Maybe the idea of church membership carries positive expectations for you. Perhaps you view church membership as something like a gym membership or a monthly online subscription service. Church membership may be no different than any other kind of membership. To be a church member is to be "subscribed" to all the perks and benefits that a church has to offer. In the end, you view church as a kind of spiritual product or service, and membership is simply way you sign up or become eligible. Like any other service, you can cancel on it or unsubscribe at any time.
Church membership isn’t and shouldn’t be viewed as a service. Nor should we fear that church membership is another way for others to take advantage of us or hurt us. When we look at what the Bible says, it’s clear that church membership is not only important but crucial for all those who follow Jesus. Why?
God intends for us to live out the Christian life in community. God has not redeemed individuals to have a one-on-one relationship with him alone. Rather, when God saved us from our sin, he made us a people who are united and bound together in him (Ephesians 2:11-22). We have not only been reconciled to God through Jesus, but to one another as well! Our membership in a local church is where we put the manifold wisdom of God on full display—showing the world how he has united us in Jesus (Ephesians 3:10)!
Church membership, therefore, isn’t a perk or benefit to serves only our own interests. Church membership is the way that all of us who follow Jesus, by God’s grace, help one another grow up into maturity as we encourage and spur one another on in the faith (Ephesians 4:11-16; Hebrews 23-25). Through church membership, we also commit to worshipping God together with his people on a regular basis.
Church membership provides us with the kind of accountability and responsibility that we need to not only grow in our relationship with Jesus but to help others grow as well!
God has so designed the Christian life that you and I need other people. We need our church family to help keep us accountable to living a God-honoring life, to encourage us, to teach us, to guide us through difficult seasons, and to fight the fight of faith. But they also need us to serve them in the same way! Church membership enlists us into the kinds of formal and functional relationships necessary for growth in our relationship with God.
In short, the Christian life isn’t about you and Jesus alone. Rather, it’s about the people of God striving together as they stand side-by-side in the faith, hope, and love of the gospel. Membership in a local church is the means that God has given us to do that very thing!
If church membership seems boring, or scary, or even just plain transactional to you, then we invite you to explore the resources on this page to discover the joy and blessing of being a member of a local church!
by Bibles.net
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV
The word “church” is used 110 times in the New Testament, and it is instructive to note that 93 of those are clear references to the local church… We may conclude from this large number of references that the Bible has quite a lot to say about the importance of the local church.
by Wayne Mack | SourceWhat could be more logical? He who believes in Christ is united with Christ. Faith binds him to Christ. He is a member of Christ’s body, the invisible church.
But the visible church is but the outward manifestation of that body. Every member of the invisible church should, as a matter of course, be a member of the visible church.
Extremely significant in this connection is Acts 2:47: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Not only does the Lord Christ require of those who are saved that they unite with the church; he himself joins them to the church. And the reference is unmistakably to the visible church.
Many of our responsibilities to believers are spelled out in terms of the “one another commands” found throughout Scripture. There are 58 “one another commands” in the Word of God, and, realistically understood, it’s impossible to understand how these commands may be truly fulfilled toward other believers without involvement in a local church… In all of Paul’s “one anothering” passages, he was instructing the members of a specific local church to act in these ways toward one another.
by Wayne Mack | SourceIt’s clear that in the days of the apostles, it was the universal practice to receive believers into the visible church. It’s possible that a true believer, because of some unusual circumstances, may fail to unite with the church. One may, for instance, believe in Christ and die before receiving baptism, or joining a local church. But such instances are exceptional. The Scriptural rule is that while membership is not a prerequisite for salvation, it is a necessary consequence of salvation.
by R.B. Kuiper | SourceMembership in a local church does not mean that you are part of the body of Christ. Without Christ, church membership means nothing. Hell is filled with people who were church members. Before you respond to the challenge of church membership, you must make sure you know Jesus Christ, who is “head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:22). Your greatest need in life is not to be on the membership roll of a church; it is to be made right with God by the One who died for the church, who created the church, who loves the church, and who is returning someday for his true church.
If the church is a building, then we must be bricks in it; if the church is a body, then we are its members; if the church is a household of faith, then we are part of that household. Sheep are in a flock, and branches on a vine. Biblically, if we are Christians we must be members of a church. This membership is not simply the record of a statement we once made or of affection toward a familiar place. It must be the reflection of a living commitment or it is worthless.
by Mark Dever | SourceIn our battles with sin, we need a team of people. We need teachers to help us understand Scripture, prophets to help us apply it, interceders to pray for us, preachers to focus our eyes on Christ, encouragers to remind us of God’s grace when we feel like failures, wise men and women to discern when we are making foolish decisions, and people of faith to tell us that everything God has said is true in Christ. In other words, God’s gifts to us are people—not just one person, but the church. This is how Christ meets us. The reason we need so many people is that we need Christ himself. Since his glory and gifts are so immense, we need many people, not just an individual person.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
What the Church and the Gym Have in Common
This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.