The Bible doesn’t talk about membership in the same way we talk about it today, but you see in the New Testament that the first church had lists of widows and they had a concept of excluding some from the official group when engaging in church discipline. They also seemed to have a list of those who were included in the Lord’s Supper. So, it seems, there was an official “membership” at least in some form.
More practically, as we choose leaders and teachers, we want to choose people who have officially thrown their lot in with us, people who have been through a membership class and indicated their affirmation to our most basic doctrines and an understanding of our purpose and mission. We see membership more as a list of people we can count on and call on than anything else.
Membership also involves responsibility and ownership. The members of a church have a responsibility for the health and faithfulness of the church.
And church membership is family membership. While we want to show the love of Christ to our entire community, our church has a special, Bible-assigned, responsibility to care for those who are officially in the family.
One more component to membership is pastoral accountability. The Bible says…
Hebrews 13:17 | Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. (CSB)
Our pastor and our ministers are accountable in some way for the spiritual health and growth for some people. We believe those people to be the official members of the church.
