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The Commentary

Church with walls

As pastor I get teased sometimes that it seems harder to become a member of our church than it is to get into heaven.

With a smile I reply that, sadly, that is probably true. The reason is that, whereas the Lord Jesus can see into people’s hearts and so know for certain who is really his, we mere mortals can’t. So, persuaded that we should be aiming at a church membership made up of real Christians, the leadership listens to people’s stories of how they came to Christ and looks for signs of genuine godliness and obedience to Christ and his commands. Obviously, we can’t guarantee we always get it right, but, with God’s help, we do our best.

Secondary, not unimportant

Such a stance on church membership has been out of favour in evangelical circles for many years. It is not ‘inclusive’. We have taken a lot of stick for it. There is, of course, a vein of thought which disputes whether the idea of church membership is biblical in the first place. But, if the local church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12.27), then it must be a pretty strange body which does not know which are its members and which are not. ‘Does that arm belong to us?’ ‘Are those your teeth or mine?’

While it is absolutely right that evangelicals major on and stand together for the primary matters of the gospel, we can fall into thinking that secondary issues, like ecclesiology, don’t matter at all. This is a mistake. Bible Christians must support one another, realising that, while different views of the church and what constitutes a church are not salvation issues, nevertheless they do matter in the long run.
They matter at two levels at least.

First, in his important book The Courage to be Protestant, David Wells highlights the weakness that lack of ecclesiology has produced among evangelicals. Under the ‘Jesus good, church bad’ ethos of the times, he says that in the 1980s evangelicals began to think of the gospel almost entirely in para-church terms. It was movements, leaders, methodology and conferences which mattered, not churches. Because of this, the door was wide open to the religious marketers with their idea that ‘you can be a Christian without going to church’.

This was reinforced by TV ministries and the pervasive availability of religious videos and sermon tapes. ‘Church life subsided in importance for many people, if only because on Sunday morning they could, and often did “go to church” in their living rooms in front of their television sets.’ Loss of commitment to the church often results in loss of commitment to Christ. Coals falling out of the fire?

Secondly, lack of ecclesiology leads to trouble within local churches. Keen to embrace anyone who calls themselves a Christian some churches end up with a membership which has no unified vision of who they are or what they are meant to be about. Factions within such churches can emerge as different groups fight for control. It often ends in tears, usually those of a very bruised pastor and family.

Not a problem

Let’s do everything legitimate to make non-Christians feel welcome in our worship services. But let’s not blur the distinction between Christians and non-Christians and not compromise on the fact that every true Christian ought to be a member of a local church. This distinction is no obstacle to God working. The non-Christians certainly understood these things on the day of Pentecost, and those who accepted Peter’s message were baptised and about 3,000 were added to the church.

John Benton