Do you Have to Join a Church? – Rural Reset 12/21 [14]

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: In this episode of 'Back to Rurality,' TJ Freeman, a rural pastor, discusses the concept of church membership. Freeman explains how church membership helps Christians to clarify, participate, demonstrate, and identify with their local churches.

Key Points:

• Common Questions: Freeman addresses whether church membership biblical. He also begs the question whether church membership is controlling. 
• Church Body as a Building: Much like a home, a church is made up of many different parts. TJ expresses that if a brick if left out of a building it isn't serving it's purpose. This is true also of Christians not joining in on the life of a local church. 
• Church Discipline: Although it the concept of church discipline is uncomfortable, it is a means of grace. In other words, it is a helpful tool to keep each other away from destruction of sin. 

Listener Takeaways:

• Join a local church and lock arms with other Christians in your area. Befriend them, serve with them, and go all in. Be known by others in your church. 
• Prayerfully consider joining a church. Read through the statement of faith and see what it is you will be joining.
• Meet with the pastors of church and talk through any reservations you may have in joining the church. 
  
  
  

Connect with Us:

• Website: backtorurality.com
• Social Media: Facebook

Transcript

So you've been going to church, and you're feeling pretty good about it, but now there's a catch. They want you to go to the membership class. What's the deal with the membership class? You've been going, you feel like you're well included in everything. Are they trying to control you somehow? Are they after your money?

Is church membership even biblical? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because that's what we're talking about on this episode of Back to Rurality. Hello, my name is TJ Freeman and like you, yes, I live in the middle of Nowhere, which is great. I am a rural pastor and I really like talking about what it's like to live in the middle of nowhere.

And today I want to talk about what it's like to be asked to join a church in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe they haven't even asked, and you're just wondering on your own, what is the deal with church membership? Is that something we should really get bent out of shape about? Is that something we should put our names on that piece of paper for, or not?

What is the big deal? Well, let me tell you, I grew up as a member at a little Baptist church in the middle of nowhere, and the fact that I was a member meant two things. One, it meant I had my name on a piece of paper in a dusty filing cabinet somewhere in the church. Secondly, it meant that I had agreed to certain lifestyle behaviors. I don't remember most of them, but there is one that came up.

I was teaching school and one of my co workers invited me over for a campfire, and he offered me an alcoholic beverage. I was over 21, but I did have my name on a piece of paper in the church basement, and so I kindly said, Hey, no thanks. And he just asked me, Hey, listen, That's fine, but is this because your church said you're not allowed to drink?

Well, it's kind of more complicated than that. But yeah, my church does have a position on alcohol. And they said, well, does the Bible say you can't drink? And I said, well, no, not exactly. It talks about drunkenness. And so he just said, well, listen, it sounds to me like your church is asking you to do more than what the Bible's asking you to do. And tell me again, how is that different from any other cult? And I'll be honest with you. I kind of stumbled my way through that, but.

That started me really wrestling with the question, should the church be asking its members to do more? than what the Bible asks church members to do. And I concluded that something like church membership actually had the potential to be a stumbling block. You see, I grew up in this more legalistic background and it occurred to me at some point that, well, Jesus actually loves me.

He died to save me. And it's really important that I love him, that I know him, that I'm getting to know him better through his word, all of these kinds of things. 

And I remembered what it was like for me to have some extra things piled on that were a bit of a stumbling block. And I just thought, if anything's going to be a stumbling block, we just want it to be the gospel itself. We don't want them stumbling over something else on the way to the gospel. So when I became a church planter, my church planting partner and I decided, Hey, let's not offer church membership, at least at first, because we just really want our church to be about proclaiming the truth that Jesus died for sinners.

And I'm gonna just tell you right now, the pendulum went too far in the other direction, as pendulums typically do. And somebody handed me a book at some point along this journey called Deliberate Church. Deliberate Church began to spell out an argument for church membership that I had never heard of before.

And guess where the argument came from? That's right, the pages of Scripture. It turns out church membership is really important. So now, When I get up and I teach our church membership class out there at our church in the middle of nowhere And people say to me things like is church membership really in the bible?

Is it that big a deal? Are you just trying to control us pastor? I tell them no, actually I think this is very clearly laid out in scripture And so I'll make an argument to you from Scripture and, by the way, teaching this membership class is actually my favorite class to teach. And the reason for that is, I once was confused about membership.

I experienced membership where it was kind of like Maybe used to apply some extra restrictions, but really didn't mean that much. I have experienced not having church membership at all.

And now for the last 12 years as a pastor at Christ Church in Wellsboro, I have experienced the beauty of being formally committed to a body of believers in my own community, and it has been so precious and sweet. And so what I just want to do for this episode is walk through a couple of reasons. Why I think the scriptures spell out church membership as something valuable and good.

And a lot of it is, I'm gonna call it implicit. I don't mean implied like hinted at. I'm gonna say it's sort of understood Naturally, that you would join a church. We've put some things around church membership today to help formalize it in a way that is necessary, because what the early church was able to assume, we're no longer able to assume.

Let me spare you all the details, but just to say, as the church was brand new and forming, Especially forming in the face of persecution, it was really easy for believers to identify with one another in a way that was really well understood. Just, we're just a lot removed from that today, and some of the things that we do are more pragmatic, but to get after the same heart that we see playing out in the New Testament.

If you ever want a deeper explanation of that, I'd love to talk to you about that more. You can just look at our info on facebook. com slash back to rurality or back to rurality. com reach out. And I would love to connect with you more on what I just said, but for now, Let's just think about some of the illustrations that you see in the pages of Scripture.

I talked about one on the episode last week, that is the body, and I talked about Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, and how both of those passages refer to the Church as a body, and it talks about the fact that a body has many parts, and just as your body has many parts, the Church body has many parts, and I'll tell you what, they're pretty committed to each other.

If they weren't, they're you'd be going to see the doctor. And in the church, that idea of being a part of a body carries the same idea, the same concept. If there's a part of the body that's really not committed to the rest of the body, that's harmful to the whole thing. You cannot function as a healthy body without every part being committed and functioning within its proper position in the body.

There's another analogy, and that is of a building. If you were to look at 1 Corinthians 3. 9 or Ephesians 2. 21, you would hear the Apostle Paul talking about the church like a building. So just picture the building you're in right now, unless you're driving a car or whatever, but you've been in a building before.

So you go inside the building, and you pass through the doorway, and you go through this threshold from outside to inside. You pass by those things on the exterior of the building. that protect it from the elements, whether it's bricks or vinyl siding or wood, whatever it is, or something on the outside that's serving a certain purpose behind that is some kind of framing that's holding it all up inside of the framing.

There's going to be wires and pipes and all kinds of things run through there. Inside the house, there's going to be drywall or plaster or you know, stuff on the inside of the framing.

And, by the way, I'm probably, the worst drywaller ever. I did this little patch of drywall right next to the light switch in my bedroom. So when I roll over and I see the sunlight hitting that little patch of drywall that I did,

I think, praise the lord that he didn't call me to work with my hands like that. Because I'm clearly no good. But yeah, you have your ceiling, your ceiling fans, your lights, your plumbing, you know, all this stuff is there to make up your house. And, All of it works together to make the house or the building a really useful place to be, but just, let's just take bricks for a second.

Imagine just a, a wall of bricks outside and all those bricks are stacked in there. They're nicely held together by the mortar. Each one's carrying a little bit of weight and it's also being carried by the other bricks around it. Starting to see the analogy here.

If there's a brick laying in the yard, it is no less brick than all the other bricks in the wall. But what's going on with it? It's serving no purpose, and there's nothing serving to help it serve its purpose. You can see the analogy in your own life. If you're a Christian, but you're disconnected, From the rest of the building.

Yeah, you're still a Christian, but you're not serving your purpose and you're not helping others serve their purpose and others aren't helping you serve your purpose. You're meant to be more formally committed, a little bit cemented in. to this building that is the people of the church. There's another image in 1 Peter chapter, 5, verse 2, where the, the pastors are told to shepherd the flock of God that's among you.

So, the church is referred to as a flock there, and it's not a flock of seagulls. It's a flock of sheep. So this is the idea of a shepherd with his sheep and the sheep being together. If you know anything about a lonely sheep all by itself out in the woods, that thing is super vulnerable, 

you know, sheep are not known for being the smartest of the animals. I remember once watching a video of a bunch of sheep going through a gate and there is one sheep that for some reason jumps and it hits its head on the top of the gate, falls over and then gets up and runs through. Guess what every other sheep does.

It's just boom, boom. One after the next jumping up, hitting their head, going through the gate. Sheep are not the most intelligent animals, but they do well when they're all together in a flock. under the care of a shepherd. Think about the analogy here. If you are out by yourself, separated from the flock, you're still a sheep.

You're still a Christian, but you're really vulnerable. You're prone to attack. You're likely to be devoured. You're meant to be together with a fold. So there's a little bit more of a formal relationship here. So you can imagine how the building, the body, the flock, how those images represent us.

There's actually another one that we hear about in Scripture, and that is the household of God, or the family of God. And you can just think about that. As a family, you are a little more formally committed to each other. At least, that's what my birth certificate would indicate. And if you don't have a family, that's tough.

There's a name for a kid who grows up without a family, and that's an orphan. And you can just imagine, spiritually, what it's like to be an orphan. That is not a comfortable place to be. There is some kind of family. Formality that seems to be assumed in these analogies here in the scriptures. And these things fight against what is our temptation today when we go to church.

We have a temptation to approach church like consumers. We forget the fact that God has actually called us, as Christians, to be a part of the body of Christ so that we can give, so that we can serve. so that we can be vulnerable and open up and be served by others. It's not just about us going somewhere where we like to be fed.

It's about us being part of a family, part of a body, part of God's flock, part of this building. We shouldn't approach it so consumeristically. We should think, you know, I wonder how I can take the next steps toward being more formally committed to this family of believers. And so I just want to give you four reasons that you should think about joining. Those other things I gave you, those are illustrations to talk about the significance of being really meaningfully integrated into the life of your church. Here are four reasons I think you should join. Number one is for clarification.

You see this play out in 1st Corinthians chapter 5. Hey, do this later, okay? Go to 1st Corinthians 5 and read the first five verses, and they're a little bit scandalous, shall I say, and you'll see that there's a man there who's done something really wrong, and the Apostle Paul says to the church, Hey, what are you guys doing?

You're tolerating this sin, kind of even like bragging about how gracious you've been. But actually what you need to do is you need to remove this man from your membership. So here's what happens. When somebody lives in unrepentant sin, that's just really clear sin. It's obvious. It's unrepentant. It's out in the open like that, and you call them to turn from it.

They won't do it. They need to be removed from church membership. Why? Because there's a difference between the life of a believer and the life of an unbeliever. And you don't want the world to look at the way this person's living and think, Oh, that must be what God is like. God tolerates that kind of living.

No, that's not the case. You also don't want the person to assume that they're a believer because you're embracing them in the lifestyle that they're in. So, hey, I can live however I want. As long as I prayed some prayer, I'm good. No, that's actually a lie. There's some clarification that comes in that says, hey, believers do actually live a certain way.

Sometimes we get goofy, and we don't live like we're supposed to, but when we're called to change, it's true. according to scripture, we should repent. You're just living in open, unrepentant sin that's really wicked, and you won't turn from it. So we can no longer confirm that you're a believer because you're just not living like one.

We would hate to affirm someone as a believer. They think they're good, and then they face Jesus for judgment and find out that they never were. So it's actually a kindness of the Church to say to somebody who won't repent, Hey, we need you to be put outside of our membership. We don't think you're one of us, and we're going to welcome you right back in if you'll turn from your sin and trust Christ.

But at this point, we cannot affirm that you're a citizen of heaven because you're just not living like one. It clarifies the gospel for the world, it clarifies the gospel for that person, and it clarifies the gospel for the Church who's looking on going, Oh. So, I guess there really are some standards here, and this does really matter.

The second reason is for participation. For participation. So, a lot of people today just don't feel the need to commit to church, but when you commit to something more formally, you're likely to participate more regularly. And that's what we understand here. When you join a church, you're committed to going to things like, I'm going to be there for the worship services.

So I'm gonna go through, like, the whole book of Genesis with my church when we studied Genesis together. I'm gonna go through the whole book of Ephesians with my church when we go through the book of Ephesians together. We have this shared experience where we're participating in these sermon series together.

We're feasting on the same text together, and we're all growing in the same direction. That, as you join the church, is really magnified. The same thing with taking the Lord's Supper, with fellow church members, with receiving the encouragement of the body, with people coming to you when you're away and absent and asking, just checking on you, and you going and checking on others.

The kind of, the kind of member care that happens through meaningful membership, the participation in that is so sweet and so significant. I have benefited from that so much. A couple of years ago I had COVID real bad, and really nobody could be around me, but the way that my church members cared for me was so encouraging.

They would send me cards, they would drop off food at my house, I knew that my family was cared for well. Why? Because, you These fellow members, who I had committed to, and who had committed to me, were really stepping up and being the Church. So sweet. Join for participation like that. Join for demonstration.

That's the third one. Join for demonstration.

There is a way that you can show the world the love of Christ. More significantly than any other way. Like the most potent way. You know what it is? By loving other Christians really well. John 13, 34 and 35 talk about that.

John says, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another by this. All people will know that you're my disciples, if you have love for one another. You want to teach other people what it looks like to be a disciple of Christ, then you love each other really well.

And when you join a church, there's a sense in which you're committing to loving that group of people, even when they seem really unlovable. You know, that happens in church just like it happens in a marriage. There are times when you get on each other's nerves. Times when it's just not that fun to be around each other.

Times, maybe even, where you really upset each other. But because you've joined this thing, you're a part of something bigger than yourself, and you're more formally committed. You work through it, you push through it, you keep on loving, and you keep on serving over time, and you demonstrate the love of Christ.

What it's like to be His disciples. And as you do, that love looks like a 1 John 3, 16 18 kind of love. Let me read that to you. 1 John 3, 16 18 says, By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Think about the weight of that. Lay down your life for the brothers. If you can't even join this group of people formally, and the way that the church is asking, it's really hard to lay down your life for them. Verse 17, But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, Let us love not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. You know, the love of Christ is a sacrificial kind of love, and that's something that we get to demonstrate as we join the Church and show that to one another. And we also recognize that as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

You are going to become like the people you spend the most time around. And when you join the Church, you actually are committing to spend quite a bit of time around these people. Say, I'm going to give my life to be devoted to serving Christ alongside this family of believers. These people are now going to be integrated into my life, and I'm going to be integrated into their life.

And you're going to become more like them. And if that's a good Church, that's a really good thing. Lastly is for identification. When you come and make a confession of faith, let's say it's for your baptism. You've heard the gospel, you've been saved, you start going to church, and you're ready to be baptized.

You make a confession of your faith. You stand up and you tell them, This is what happened to me. I used to be like this. Jesus intervened. He saved my soul. I've been transformed, and today I want to identify with Christ and with His people through baptism. And the Church affirms that profession of faith by going ahead and doing the baptism.

So you're identifying with the body of believers through your baptism, which is very much connected to your Church membership. You're joining this family. When you do, you become bound to those people in a very real way. I talked just a little bit ago about church discipline.

I think I should go back and just say church discipline is a good thing. I want to always be under the umbrella of church discipline because you know what I know about myself? I really can't be trusted. I, by God's grace, am doing well today. I'm not immune from getting pulled away by some sin that entices me, and if I do, I don't want to just give myself over to that.

I want my fellow church members to come to me and say, Whoa, you're not living like a Christian should live, and I'm concerned for you. I want them to win me back, as Matthew 18 talks about.

And if I resist that for some reason, I don't want to keep going down that road and have it get worse and worse and worse and worse. Which is exactly what's gonna happen, so the church discipline gets turned up. It goes from one meeting with me to two meeting with me, and if I still don't repent, it goes to the church.

That's a really big deal. Sounds uncomfortable, and it should sound uncomfortable because no one wants to be in that situation. Today, when you're in your right mind, that's the time to ask church members for that kind of accountability. Say, I want to join this thing. Because if I start going off the rails, I want your help.

I want you to be able to say to me in a way that has some teeth, Hey, if you don't turn from this, we're going to have to have a meeting about you and remove you from the church. Again, sounds terrible. And if you're just wanting to live for yourself and do your own thing and be really private, then church membership probably isn't for you, but I gotta just say, that means neither is Christianity.

Our faith is not something that we're meant to just live out in private, doing our own thing and discerning what's best in our own minds. That's why we're a part of a body. That's why we're a part of something bigger than ourselves. God has called us into this kind of family to help us, to help us grow, to help us become more like Christ, to give us an opportunity to help others to become more like Christ.

And it does put some weight on you, and that is a good thing from the Lord. So when you identify, as I was starting to talk about in this fourth point, as a church member, you're identifying yourself to others saying, Hey, I want this kind of accountability in my life, and I want you to lean on me. So that I can serve you in the same way.

You're also saying to your church elders, Hey, I see in scripture that I'm supposed to be led by elders, by shepherds. And I want you to know I I'm ready for that kind of leadership in my life. We'll do another episode on church elders. So you understand what that kind of authority looks like. It's very much a borrowed authority.

It's just one of the means of grace that Christ uses to help you be shepherded in this life through church leaders. And the thing about following church leaders is there are church leaders all over the place. And you as a Christian should ask, well, which church leaders am I supposed to submit to when the Bible talks about submitting to church leaders?

And that's where we start to see, hey, this thing is broken down on purpose by the Lord into local churches for reasons such as this, in the same way as elders. Elders shouldn't just be wondering, who is in my flock and who is not? Through the process of church membership, you're identifying yourself, saying, I'm a part of this flock.

Dear shepherd, would you please shepherd me? So it allows church leadership to serve you more effectively, and it really gives full permission for you to be shepherded like the scriptures say that you should be. It also, as you identify with the church, a body of Christ, a local church like this, you're opposing consumerism.

You're saying, I'm not just going to float around from church to church. I'm not just going to casually come to church on my own agenda. I'm not going to be here for the things I like and just skip the things I don't like. No, I'm going to oppose consumerism, going to identify myself with these people, and I'm going to do what God has called me to do, to make Him known through the local church.

The very thing that shows His manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. And then there's just this last statement. I love this from the church membership class. It says church members recognize that no church is perfect, but commit to living out their faith with a particular group of people, saying, I will live for Christ with these people.

That's what church membership really is all about. So today we've asked the question, is church membership really biblical? We've seen some things in Scripture that show that yes, Church membership really does have biblical roots. The Bible may not directly say, thou must be a member of thine local church, but it assumes as much, and it speaks from that position, and then it just reaffirms the principle all throughout scripture.

We've seen that, God uses the images of a building, a body, a flock, and a family to help us understand how integrated we should be in the life of the church. And then we've realized that there's four good reasons to join, for clarification, for participation, for demonstration, and for identification. So if you have a healthy church in your community and you've not joined, your next step is to prayerfully consider joining.

Just sit down and talk to your pastor about it. Realize he's not trying to just add one more person to the list that he's going to stand before God and be accountable for, but your church has membership because they understand this to be a biblical practice and they want to care for your soul well. So sit down with your pastor, just talk to them about maybe any reservations you have, you would have about church membership or questions that might be on your mind, and just ask yourself, how can I faithfully serve Christ through more intentional, significant, committed relationships with other believers in my church?

And if I'm unwilling to do that, Why am I unwilling to do that? If you don't have a healthy church in your community, you're gonna need to think really carefully about what it is you would be joining. You need to look at things like the statement of faith. You need to do that either way. But in particular, if there's not a healthy church, but you're going to a church there, You need to think carefully about what that church really confesses and what it means and what you're joining.

And if there's just no church in your community, you should be praying that the Lord might use you even to be a part of the launch of a new church right there in your own small town. God wants to be glorified there in the middle of nowhere. It's part of why He has you there, to bring Him glory, and He receives the most glory when His people gather together to worship Him as the Body of Christ.

Again, if you want to talk about that, jump over to BackToReality. com or Facebook. com slash BackToReality. Reach out to myself or to Catherine. We would love to talk to you more about what it means to be a church, a healthy church member. Thanks for listening to this episode. See This is part of a series called Rural Reset.

I'm just going through 21 episodes to kind of get back to the basics of the Christian faith so that you have a nice spiritual baseline to build from throughout the rest of this podcast and really in all of your life. If you go back to episode three, you'll see the first episode of our Rural Reset. Well, that's it for now. Let's get back to life. Back to Rurality.