In this video, Rev. Ken Jones testifies to the importance of local church membership.
When we talk about church membership today, what we’re talking about is commitment to a local assembly, a local assembly that believes the same things that we believe. But the dynamics of church membership today would be different somewhat from the New Testament in this, for most Christians, wherever you live, you’re within minutes of another church that believes the same thing, sometimes even of the same denomination. So church membership today, the dynamics of which are different from this church membership of say, the first century, where in any given area you may have the church at Corinth, as if there were not other churches in that same area, or churches house, churches, as it were.
So, when we talk about Corinth in the New Testament, Paul assumes that there is one day where the gathering of those people who worship in that community, where they meet. So, he says in the first day of the week when you meet, and he’s talking about taking up a collection for the saints in other places. So the assumption is that there was a common meeting place and there are leaders that take oversight of that local congregation. The issues that he addresses are those that concern that local assembly.
Well, today, church membership assumes the same sort of connection, but it’s a little bit different. So therefore, membership is defined according to this particular local assembly. The reason it’s important is for all of the exhortations that we have, number one, the idea of corporate gathering for the place for the purpose of worship, where the Word of God is communicated to the people of God, where the sacraments and the Spirit, again, if I’m using 1 Corinthians as the example where the Lord’s table is served and everything there assumes not that people go from place to place, but that when Paul writes to the church at Corinth, when he writes to the church at Ephesus, that they regularly gather together.
So, church membership is important for the nourishing of the individual and the flourishing of that local congregation so that the commands that we see incumbent upon the church gathered are met in this certain gathering. Now, the definition of membership, it may change in various places, but the idea of being committed to a local assembly under the oversight of the leadership that Christ is placed over local churches, it seems to be consistent with the model that we see in the New Testament and therefore necessary for the growth of individual members within that body.