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?’