Twelve Reasons Church Membership Matters

The following Twelve Reasons Church Membership Matters is taken from Jonathan Leeman's book Church Membership, which is part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series.

1. It's biblical. Jesus established the local church and all the apostles did their ministry through it. The Christian life in the New Testament is church life. Christians today should expect and desire the same.

2. The Church is its members. To be a church in the New Testament is to be one of its members (read through Acts). And you want to be part of the church because that's who Jesus came to rescue and reconcile to himself.

3. It's a prerequisite for the Lords Supper. The Lord's Supper is a meal for the gathered church, this is, for members (see 1 Corinthians 11:20-33). And you want to take the Lord's Supper. It's the team flag that makes the church team visible to the nations.

4. It's how you officially represent Jesus. Membership is the church's affirmation that you are a citizen of Christ's kingdom and therefore a passport-carrying Jesus representative before the nations. And you want your representation to be authorized. Closely related to this...

5. It's how you declare your highest allegiance. Your membership on the team, which becomes visible when you wave the flag of the Lord's supper is a public testimony that your highest allegiance belongs to Jesus. Trials and persecution may come, but your only words are, "I am a Christian."

6. It's how you embody and experience biblical images. It's within the accountability structures of the local church that Christians live and experience the inter connectivity of his body, the spiritual fullness of his temple, and the safety and intimacy and shared identity of his family.

7. It's how you serve other Christians. Membership helps you to know which Christians on planet Earth you are specifically responsible to love, serve, warn and encourage. It enables you to fulfill your biblical responsibilities to Christ's body (for example, see Eph. 4:11-16, 25-32)

8. It's how you follow Christian leaders. Membership helps you to know which Christian leaders on planet Earth you are called to obey and follow. Again, it allows you to fulfill your biblical responsibility to them (see Heb. 13:7, 17)

9. It helps Christian leaders lead. Membership lets Christians leaders know which Christians on planet Earth they will "give an account" for (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2)

10. It enables church discipline. It gives you the biblically prescribed place to participate in the work of church discipline responsibly, wisely, and lovingly (1 Cor. 5).

11. It gives structure to your Christian life. It places an individual Christian's claim to obey and follow Jesus into a real-life settling where authority is actually exercised over us (see John 14:15; 1 John 2:19; 4:20-21). It's God's discipling program.

12. It builds a witness and invites the nations. Membership puts the alternative rule of Christ on display for the watching universe (see Matt. 5:13; John 13:34-35; Eph. 3:10; 1 Pet. 2:9-12). The very boundaries, which are drawn around the membership of a church, yield a society of people that invites the nations to something better. It's God's evangelism program.

Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus, Jonathan Leeman, pg. 79-81.

Wrong Thinking Regarding Church Membership

This month we are focusing on the importance of Church Membership. Don't worry you read that right! Church Membership is very important. But sadly many don't understand this truth. The following list reveals where many go wrong:

• Christians can think it's fine to attend church indefinitely without joining; 
• Christians think of getting baptized apart from joining;  
• Christians take the Lord's Supper without joining; 
• Christians view the Lord's Supper as their own private, mystical experience for Christians and not as an activity for church members who are incorporated into body life together;  
• Christians don't integrate their Monday-to-Saturday lives with the lives of other saints; 
• Christians assume they can make a perpetual habit of being absent from the churches gathering a few Sunday's a month or more; 
• Christians make major life decisions (moving, accepting a promotion, choosing a spouse, etc.) without considering the effects of those decisions on the family of relationships in the church or without consulting the wisdom of the church's pastor and other members; 
• Christians buy homes or rent apartments with scant regard for how factors such as distance and cost will affect their abilities to serve their church; 
• Christians don't realize that they are partly responsible for both the spiritual welfare and the physical livelihood of the other members of their church, even members they have not met. When one mourns, one mourns by himself. When one rejoices, one rejoices by herself. 

How important is Church Membership to you? 

Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus, Jonathan Leeman, pg. 23