Meme Sunday

My Name Is No Longer on a Church Membership Roll. I Guess I'm Not Going to Heaven.

As far as I know, my name is no longer on any local church's membership roll. I cannot confirm this for certain because I'm not about to dig through old file cabinets to find out.

The church where I worked as pastor is the last place where I was a member. Last year I emailed to request that my name be taken off the roll. I received a confirmation message that this occurred. This is the best I can do.

Since I'm no longer on a church membership roll I suppose this means I'm not going to heaven. That makes me sad.

Stranger in a Strange Church Land

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians (Wikipedia).

Many times I feel like a stranger in a strange church land.

As far as the church is concerned, it's as if I was raised by Martians on Mars but then later dropped off on earth. When I look around me what I largely see seems foreign. I often feel out of place and time. I imagine it's something like how Moses felt when, after fleeing to Egypt, he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land" (Exodus 2:22).

I live in the Bible Belt of the USA. The biggest evidence of the church I see around me is lots of mostly empty church buildings. Once or twice a week they partly fill with people. Beyond that I see little else that indicates that the church exists here (the not being allowed to purchase alcohol before 12:30 on Sundays doesn't count as evidence of anything other than silly tradition). This is a largely secular society where most folks are expected at a cultural level to "be in church." However, my guess is that the vast majority of these don't know Christ. Many are on a membership role that means less than the paper it is printed on.

When I read the New Testament I see a church that spent much time together. I see a church that was pushed to the margins of society. I see a people who carried out the one anothers faithfully within the body. I read of family gatherings where they shared the Lord's Supper meal together. I see people who gave sacrificially to meet tangible needs. I see the people of God following the lead of the Holy Spirit. I read of elders within the body setting an example of servanthood.

A massive disconnect exists between what I see in our modern church culture and what I see in the bible. In fact, the two are so different that they are completely different things.

Because of this disconnect, I consistently feel like a stranger in a strange church land. The disconnect doesn't compute with me. It feels like I was raised on Mars with one expectation of what church should be, and then traveled to earth to find something totally different. It is odd indeed.

Despite these feelings I do have hope for the church. This is a great hope based in Jesus Christ and his faithfulness.

Do you ever feel like a stranger in a strange church land?

Theologians Off the Rails Again...

In a recent blog post Arthur Sido asked an excellent question: "What is it about ecclesiology that makes otherwise sound theologians go off the rails?"

I had been thinking about that question quite a bit this week when a magazine arrived at our house. This particular magazine is published by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (where I graduated in 2006). Despite my current views on the church, I still think SEBTS does some good things. For example, I love their emphasis on international missions. A sizable chunk of this magazine focuses on that topic. However, I did find one article that is disturbing. Not surprisingly, that article focuses on the dreaded subject of church membership.

The SEBTS article is an overview of a conference held back in September that was a joint venture between SEBTS and 9Marks. The conference's name was "Meaningful Church Membership." Speakers included Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Alistair Begg, Danny Akin, and others.

What I find most problematic is the two quotes from the conference that the writers of this article decided to highlight, placing them in bold font in the middle of the magazine's pages. These two quotes are prime examples of theologians going off the rails.

First, Jonathan Leeman (editorial director of 9Marks) is quoted as saying, "The local church represents heaven. It is also God's embassy on earth. We don't join churches, we submit to them. Church membership is the declaration of citizenship in Christ's Kingdom."

Let's be clear about something: when these speakers refer to church membership they are talking about the extrabiblical idea of belonging in a special way to only one particular local body of believers (sign your name on the card and you go on the membership roll).

Leemon's statements in that quote are unbiblical and absurd. His final sentence is the most shocking. He is calling into question the salvation of anyone who is not a member of a specific local church. He has, therefore, equated church membership with the gospel. Now, I'm sure he would deny this if asked in these terms, but his statement certainly makes things murky at best.

Later in the article, speaker Thabiti Anyabwile is quoted with the following, " Every time we talk about the body of Christ we are talking about church membership. God puts His body together. Pride tears it apart."

I agree completely with Anyabwile's second and third sentences. It is the first one that is troublesome. The key is the definition of church membership. Anyabwile's statement is correct if by church membership he simply means everyone who is part of the church everywhere. However, in light of this specific conference, he is much more likely to be talking about the extrabiblical specific church membership I mentioned earlier. If that is the case, then Anyabwile, like Leeman, is referring to the body of Christ as only those whose names are on membership rolls somewhere.

What do these speakers do with folks like me (and probably you) who claim Christ as Lord and Savior but who shun the idea of specific church membership? The answer is that they want to ignore us because we do not fit their paradigm for what church membership is.

Returning to Arthur's great question, what is it that causes normally solid theologians to go off the rails when it comes to church issues? My answer is an old one: the love of man-made traditions. These theologians either cannot or will not see past the church traditions that they love so much. These men consistently fail to use the same principles of biblical interpretation for the church that they do for other topics such as Christology, salvation, and social/cultural issues.

The church institution is not based in scripture. Rather, it exists as part of man's own comfort zone. It makes him feel good. The problem is that it is not what God wants. It bears little resemblance to the church of the New Testament. It remains based much more in Rome than Jerusalem.

Many theologians continue to ride the same train off the rails again and again and again. Let's hope and pray that God will open their eyes to the magnificent thing His church can be when we live church life according to sound biblical principles.

The Gospel is the Only True Church Membership

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13

When you accept the gospel as truth and embrace Jesus Christ as Lord, you also enter the church. You are a member forever.

This is God's wonderful plan for church membership. When we join, we become part of a glorious, world wide, multi-cultural, time crossing family. Christ is our Head, and we are all equal members.

Upon surrendering to Christ, we immediately have all the duties and privileges of family membership. We are part of God's New Covenant. We are part of His house. We are part of His body. We are part of His bride.

This church is united. We are one in Him. God wants and commands there to be no divisions in this house. No smaller, separate parts are acceptable. Instead, we are one whole, diverse unit with God as the unquestioned sovereign.

This is biblical church membership. Let's embrace it.

Not a Ticket to Heaven

Local church membership is a scourge upon the church. It is based solely in man-made tradition. There is utterly no biblical basis for it whatsoever. Local membership causes unnecessary division between brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is not just a church issue. It is also a salvation issue. Many people who give no evidence of a relationship with Jesus Christ are depending upon their church membership certificate as some sort of ticket to heaven. What a dreadful situation this is.

God has called his church to be one. A tangible way to encourage unity among the greater body of Christ would be to jettison the idea of local church membership altogether. It is not only unneeded but harmful to the body.

Instant Church Membership

When a person turns to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, he is saved. Jesus becomes his Lord and Savior and he is from that time forward forever in Christ. He becomes a part of the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. He becomes a new creation.

At the moment of salvation, the Christian also becomes part of the church. After all, the church is simply the one Christ-centered community - the assembly of all believers of all time.

This means that church membership (if that's what you want to call it) is instantaneous. It happens at the same time that salvation does. This is church membership according to scripture.

Any other form of church membership - like the types so often emphasized by local churches today - are little more than artificial man-made dividers that say "who is in and who is out." These have no biblical basis.

So let's all rejoice that when a person comes to Christ he also comes to the church. These happen at the same time. May we recognize this and glorify God for it.