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Position of the Providence Church Elders:
Church Membership
At Providence Church, we affirm formal
church membership as God's way of making the invisible church of Christ
visible in a local body. We believe church membership is a biblically
based practice that defines, builds up, and protects the local church.
Membership at Providence is open to believers in Jesus Christ who have
a credible profession of faith in Him, who have been baptized in the
name of the Triune God, who agree with our Statement of Faith, and who
are willing to commit themselves to our Church Covenant.
We reject the dismissive notions of
church membership that see it as a legalistic, unbiblical practice.
Many churches and even denominations embrace this view, believing that
church membership obscures the purity of Christian relationships based
on love.
We likewise reject the minimalist
notions of church memberships that reduce it to a meaningless list or a
mere formality. For many churches membership means simply having one's
name on a roll. Pastors may be very glad their churches have 2,000
members, even if only 400 attend worship on any given Sunday. And
sentiment trumps truth-heaven forbid we remove a member from the roll,
even though that member is living in sin and has denied Christ for
several years now. For other churches the barest minimum of involvement
is adequate to qualify one as a member. The extent of a member's
involvement in the church could simply be infrequent attendance at a
worship service, but he or she remains a member in good standing.
At Providence we desire for church
membership to be a meaningful practice that supports real and loving
relationships among the members of the body of Christ who have chosen
to unite with this local church. We desire for our membership to be a
tool for Christians who are members of the invisible church to show
their involvement with Christ's visible church. We want church
membership to unite believers around the Word of God and God's purposes
for His kingdom.
Biblical Basis for Church Membership
Church membership as it is practiced
today is both biblical and not biblical. It is not biblical in the
sense that in New Testament times, unlike today, there were not several
churches in a given city which one could join. There was just the
church, and if you were a Christian, you were part of the visible
church. However, church membership as we know it is also biblical.
There are a number of indications in the New Testament that formal
church membership is a God-ordained reality:
1. In the biblical commands for
church discipline, both the Lord Jesus and Paul mention “the church”
exercising church discipline (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5:11-13;
see also 2 Corinthians 2:6), in which a defined body acts in concert to
preserve the purity of the church and restore the offender. Also, in
order to put someone “out” of the church, there must be an “in;” in the
New Testament there was an identifiable boundary separating who was in
the church and who was not. This certainly implies the existence of
church membership. It was clearly known who was “part” and “not part”
of the fellowship.
2. In Acts 5:13 the Scriptures tell us that many did not dare “join”
the church after the death of Ananias and Sapphira. The use of this
word for “join” elsewhere in the New Testament clearly shows that what
is meant here is not a casual or superficial relationship, but a union
and a connectedness that comes very close to our concept of church
membership (see 1 Corinthians 5:11; 6:16; 6:17).
3. The New Testament contains many instructions for Christians to
obey, submit to, and honor the pastors who are required to shepherd
their souls and minister the Word of God to them (Acts 20:28;1 Timothy
3:5; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; Hebrews 13:7, 17). To which elders are
church members to submit themselves? For which Christians’ souls will
elders be answerable? Is it possible for Christians to submit to every
elder or pastor? How can pastors be accountable for souls whom they do
not know are in their care? Church membership, however, in which there
is a clearly defined relationship of accountability, makes perfect
sense of these texts. As Douglas Wilson wrote, “these duties set forth
for Christians can only be observed in submission to specific leaders
in a specific local church.”
4. The images of the church in the New Testament—the body, the
flock, the temple, the vine—presuppose the existence of individual
parts that make up the whole. Christ is the Head, the Shepherd, the
Foundation, the Vine—the center of the universal and local church—and
it is church members who are the parts—the arms and legs in the body,
the sheep in the flock, the stones in the temple, the branches in the
vine. And they are not just random parts strewn about but identifiable,
connected members making up the universal and local church. In other
words, the church is both universal and local, and it is assumed in the
New Testament that to be a part of the universal church means to be a
part of the local church. Church membership solidifies this reality.
5. Finally, it should be noted that lists are not foreign to the
Bible. Not even to mention the Old Testament census and family lists,
in the New Testament there are widow lists (1 Timothy 5) and names
written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 21:27). It is not
outrageous to keep rolls for administrative purposes in the church.
Benefits of Church Membership
The force of this biblical evidence leads to the conclusion that church
membership, when functioning correctly, is a God-ordained,
health-giving tool for the local church. The following are several
healthful benefits to having meaningful church membership:
1. Church membership provides a definite line between the church and
the world, between Christians and non-Christians, between the holy and
unholy. Membership clarifies the difference between believers and
unbelievers, helping us to know whom to treat as Christians and whom
not to treat as Christians. We cannot know ultimately who is in Christ
and who is not, but God has given us membership in the local church as
one tool for knowing if a professing Christian is truly a brother or
sister in Christ. And this is healthy for us: God has given church
discipline to us as a means of reclaiming and restoring erring and
sinning brothers and sisters. Church membership makes church discipline
possible, providing accountability and loving relationships among
church members and between church members and pastors.
2. Church membership is a corporate testimony of the reality of the
gospel. Church membership says to the watching world, “This member is a
believer in Christ, and we declare together that the gospel really is
effective to save souls and make men holy.” What does it say about the
gospel for a church member to be absentee, uninvolved, uncommitted and
uncared-for? It says, perhaps, that the gospel doesn’t really save
after all, and since the church does not really love, perhaps God does
not really love either. But committed, involved, growing church members
who are accountable to one another proclaims the life-changing reality
of grace.
3. Church membership makes orderliness and administration of the
church possible. The church must be faithful stewards of the truth and
the grace of God. The church must maintain its structure and
organization in order to be effective for God. Church membership helps
foster this administrative effectiveness.
4. Church membership is the grid for responsibility and loving
commitment among fellow believers. The church is to pursue the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace. The church is to be continually built
up in love. There is a multiplicity of “one another” commands believers
are required to obey in order to show love to the brethren. Meaningful
church membership includes people in the life of the church and
provides a grid for mutual ministry.
The Church Covenant is our members’ commitment to one another. It
expresses the pledge of church members to unite with fellow church
members in love and commitment to Christ. Church members have the
opportunity to reaffirm the Church Covenant each time we observe the
Lord’s Supper together.
Becoming a Providence Church Member
The process for becoming a member of Providence Church is as follows:
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Indicate to an elder your desire to join the church.
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An elder will visit with you to discuss your salvation and to get to know you better.
- Complete the petition for church membership, including your
testimony of salvation and baptism. If a family desires to join, the
head of household will complete the petition, indicating which family
members desire to be considered for membership.
- Read and agree to the church constitution, church covenant, and
statement of faith. Also, be in substantial agreement with the 1689
Second London Confession.
- Complete the new members class or read the new member study materials.
- Be formally presented to the church body as a new member during a Lord’s Day worship service.
Various saints on Church Membership
“Perhaps you say that you are not a church member; if so, I reply
that, if you are a Christian, you ought to be a member of Christ’s
visible church on earth; for, if you have a right not to be a member, I
have a right not to be one, and so have all the people of God; and so,
the Church of God, as an organization in the world, would cease to
exist. Who is to maintain the ministry of the Word? Who is to keep up
the ordinances of God’s house if all his people break up into separate
grains of sand instead of being living stones built up into his
spiritual temple?”
C.H. Spurgeon
“It is clear that in the days of the apostles it was universal
practice to receive believers into the visible church. What could be
more logical? He who believes in Christ is united with Christ. Faith
binds him to Christ. He is a member of Christ’s body, the invisible
church. But the visible church is but the outward manifestation of that
body. Every member of the invisible church should as a matter of course
be a member of the visible church. Extremely significant in this
connection is Acts 2:47—’And the Lord added to the church daily such as
should be saved.’ Not only does the Lord Christ require of those who
are saved that they unite with the church; He Himself joins them to the
church. And the reference is unmistakably to the visible church. Does
it follow that he who is outside the visible church is necessarily
outside Christ? Certainly not. It is possible that a true believer
because of some unusual circumstance may fail to unite with the church.
Conceivably one may, for instance, believe in Christ and die before
receiving baptism. But such instances are exceptional. The Scriptural
rule is that, while membership in the church is not a prerequisite of
salvation, it is a necessary consequence of salvation. Outside the
visible church ‘there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.’”
R. B. Kuiper
“The church is likened in the Bible sometimes to a body, sometimes
to a family or household, sometimes to a kingdom, sometimes to an army.
For any of these organisms to function properly, order of some kind is
required. The same applies to the church. The church is not just a
loose collection of individuals; it is a closely-knit structure like a
human body (Eph. 4:16) and has therefore to be rightly organized. For
such ordering it needs to know exactly who belongs to it. A family
which sat down to its meal-table or locked its doors at night, not
knowing who was supposed to be there and who not, would be an extremely
strange phenomenon. An army battalion which did not know whom to expect
on parade would soon be in chaos. If the church is to be a true family
and an effective fighting force it needs to know who exactly belongs to
it.”
Eric Lane
“I know there are some who say, ‘Well, I have given myself to the
Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to any church.’ Now, why not?
‘Because I can be a Christian without it.’ Are you quite clear about
that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s
commands as by being obedient? There is a brick. What is it made for?
To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that
it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as
it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick. So you
rolling-stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your
purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have
you live, and you are much to blame for the injury you do.”
C. H. Spurgeon
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