A Series on Church Membership
Mark Dever, a Baptist pastor and author, has said in his
book, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church,
“The responsibilities and duties of members of a Christian church are simply
the responsibilities and duties of Christians.
Church members, like Christians, are to be baptized and to regularly
attend the Lord’s Table. We are to hear
God’s Word and to obey it. We are to
regularly fellowship together for mutual edification. We are to love God, one another, and those
outside our fellowship, and we are to evidence the fruit of the Spirit”
(159). Dever is correct, here, to assert
that the Christian life is a going-to-church life.
Christian people are those who gather with like-minded
believers to learn from the Lord, worship the Lord, and encourage one another
toward faith in the Lord. This is what
it means to be a Christian. We cannot be
like a man on the moon or a wanderer on an island.
I know. I
know. The American culture has told us from
the time that we were tots that we should be independent, self-sufficient, and
go-get-our-own. As the young folks say
today, “I’m gonna do me.” Yet, this is
in no way a biblical principle. Sure, we
should be hard workers and support ourselves and our families as we earn a
living, and we shouldn’t depend on others for everything. However, Christians are to lean on the Lord
and rely on one another. As the
Scripture says, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but
in lowliness of mind let each esteems others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own
interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil 2:3-4).
To do these things, we must be together. We must see one another. The most important and, at the same time,
most basic requirement for church membership is attending gatherings on the
Lord’s Day. Why is the Church in America
struggling? There may be several
reasons, but I would argue that one major problem is that we do not even meet
together on a regular basis anymore.
When we get together, we get to know one another, we can make lifelong
friends, we can support others, and, in turn, we can be supported by others.