30 Sep What Happened to Church Membership?

For years, church membership classes have been a big part of a church’s discipleship process. People come to your church, get saved, and then go through your new members class as they become a mature Christian. But over the last couple of decades, churches have realized that while they have a long list of names on their “church directory”, not many of them are really fulfilling what it looks like to be a member of a local church.

These things include:

• Weekly Attendance
• Assisting the church in its vision
• Giving Generously
• Loving Unconditionally
• Serving
• Keeping the church’s unity.

Sitting through a membership class and signing a piece of paper at the end has let church attenders off the hook and for some has left them with a false sense of maturity. They think that because they are members of a church, they hold a higher rank or have a bigger voice than people who are not members. While being a member of a local church is important is does carry its benefits, this isn’t the goal and it’s certainly not something to hold over someone else’s head.

In fact, the pastors of churches should be able to tell who their members are without every having a formal membership class. These are the people who fit the description given above. The ones who attend, love, give, serve, and support the vision of the church wholeheartedly.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that every church should toss out their membership classes. There are a lot of important things needing to be communicated to people before they become members of a church. But churches need to stop acting like once people become members, they have arrived in the church. Signing that membership covenant doesn’t give you any special stance before God or make you better than anyone else. If anything, it means that you have a much greater responsibility to continue carrying out and upholding.

Oftentimes when churches struggle with having people join their membership class or when churches have a long list of “inactive members” it’s a vision problem. What it looks like to be a member in a church is very much tied into the mission of the church. What membership looks like is a group of fully engaged followers of Jesus who are committing themselves to love more, give more, and serve more than ever before. They are committing themselves to being sold out for the mission that God has through their local church in their community. When people don’t understand this, it’s often because these things are not being made a priority in the church culture. Too many churches are concerned with people knowing the life of David or cross referencing Scripture when these very people aren’t serving, giving, or loving like Jesus would. They have become educated beyond their belief.

For many churches, membership needs to come after the people in the church are already living out these principles. When people are already growing and becoming fully engaged, then they are ready to become church members. Giving information about the church to newcomers and then asking them to sign a paper at the end if they agree just doesn’t work.

Focus your attention, on how many people are living these characteristics out in their lives, not the number of names you have in a database.

For more on church membership check out our video on Membership Matters.