Deacon Question: Is Church Membership Biblical?

By Pastor Dan

Although the term “Church membership” is not present in the NT the principle of membership is clearly displayed through the use of analogies of the church, the practice of church discipline, enrollment, and leadership accountability.

Analogies of the Church

Paul describes the church in terms of a communal entity made up of “members.”  

• Rom 12:5 - so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (ESV)

• Eph 2:19 - So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. (NLT)

Practice of Church Discipline

The command to practice church discipline is given on several occasions.  The only way to do this practice is for there to be a clear concept of who’s in and who’s out. 

• Matt 18:17 - If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

• 1 Cor 5:4-5 - 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Member Enrollment 

The NT gives several examples of the church keep track of their rosters.  The fact that they were counting their numbers, and had a system of enrollment are evidence of church membership. (9 Marks, Is Church Membership Biblical - Matt Chandler)

• Acts 2:41 - Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 

• 1 Tim 5:9 - No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, 

Leadership Accountability 

Church leaders are warned as having to give account for their members.  In turn, members are also expected to submit to their leaders. In order for this to happen, there must be a clear connection of who is “theirs.”

• Heb 13:17 - Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.

What about membership class? 

• It depends on the cultural context (Rediscovering Church Membership).

• In a smaller church setting that has consistent people, and has security threats from persecution, a class may not be necessary, but could be replaced through relationships and conversations with elders.

• In a Larger church setting, where the people are transient, it is more efficient and effective to have a class setting to vet and onboard multiple people at once.

Deacon's Post: Is Church Membership Biblical?

By Cody Sanders, Deacon

Is church membership biblical? Well that’s a complicated topic. Membership as we know it (not referring to a church) comes with a lot of negative connotations, stemming from personal experiences in our modern society. We see fees, fine print, and a lot of catches as we feel the effects of worldly memberships of things.

However, the Bible lays it out differently. We see a term repeated, the “Flock”. A flock of sheep was a common term to describe the groups of believers in the New testament. Now, a shepherd in the bible is charged with a responsibility to “Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you.” How would you know who is in that flock unless it was a group of believers who identified themselves with a certain flock, or in better terms, a church?

This can be divulged into a variety of issues, concerning pain from previous experiences with a prior church, or a pre-supposition to joining a specific church vs being in the “universal church” of believers as seen in 1 Corinthians 12:13.

 As a believer but still a sinner saved by grace, we are still in a sanctification process as we are being saved and still struggling with the flesh. By ourselves, we are isolated from the other parts of the body of Christ, as Paul states “But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part!” We are encouraged to join with the body of Christ in a church, or in a simpler sense, a certain group of believers that is established near you that you have access to, so that “there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”

This does imply however, that there is a sense of “residency” with a group of believers, as you make a commitment to join with them and as you reside under the leadership of that flock’s elders and pastors that oversee them, as seen in Hebrews 13:17. This allows a believer to have a community to have fellowship with and a way of accountability as we all grow in Christ, as seen in Matthew 18: 15-17

On a final note, membership as we see in our modern society is not the same as the kind we see in the bible. It isn’t called that, nor is it made plain anywhere. Rather, we see numerous times as we encounter Paul’s epistles to the churches in Corinth, Ephesus, etc. that there are established groups of believers as well as overseers to help discipline them and to help them grow in Christ as a church. Desiring God has a good way to summarize the points made here, stating: “The New Testament teaching about church government and church discipline would be meaningless if some form of commitment to mutual accountability in a body of believers were not expected.”

Inside PD's Weekly Schedule

TLDR: My usual week is 50hrs MINIMUM (this is a very conservative estimate) - 15hrs sermon prep (grey), 15hrs development/discipling (green), 8hrs 1on1’s (red), 8hrs Admin (green at top), 5hrs Sunday/Church events (blue). 

A question that pastors often get is “What do you do all week???”  

This is an understandable question considering that the bulk of what people see happens on Sunday.  And unless you are familiar with the ministry/church world it may not be so obvious what are the responsibilities of a pastor on a weekly basis.  

Also, it is true the pastor’s schedule is very flexible.  I have to make my own schedule and my own hours.  This means that there is the possibility (and some pastors have been guilty of this) of not being a good manager of time.  I assure you that I’m usually guilty of working too much rather than too little.  The flexibility means for me that it’s easier to overwork and neglect important things like family.  Heather often has to tell me to scale back and make more room for kids, marriage, etc.  

The following schedule I’ve learned to put together over the past few years based on talking to and researching (Pastor’s Handbook, Lifeway Leadership etc.), other pastor’s schedules (Piper, Keller, Local Nashville pastors) to find something that works for me.  It is still a work in progress but hope will give some insight. Ultimately I serve God and the Unity Fam. So I’m definitely open to suggestions/changes how I could better use my time to serve y’all better.

So here’s a breakdown of my typical week!

• Sermon Prep: 15 hrs, I have checkpoints to finish a certain amount of sermon prep by certain days.  Checkpoints include personal meditation, researching commentaries, writing rough drafts and outlines, editing drafts, making powerpoint slides, practicing and memorizing sermon.  Writing a sermon is like writing a 5 page research paper and preparing a presentation on it every week.  I usually schedule time in the morning.  However, with my wife’s health issues she is usually sick in the morning which means I have to take care of Sawyer.  Thus, most weeks I’m up around 5am on Sundays finishing my sermon and sometimes do not finish until 10:30am Sunday morning!!  To have my sermon done earlier, I need either my wife to get healthier, my kids to both be in school, or cut back other activities during the week…I expect that once Sawyer is in school that my sermon prep will be done much sooner. #hoping #stilllovemyjob

• Development/Discipling: 15 hrs, I have several commitments that focus on developing/discipling leaders every week.  These include: Shepherd’s meetings (every Thurs night), Bible studies (Living Life, Men’s Bible Study, 101 class, week night or sunday), House church (Saturday night). I also have 4 monthly meetings (Deacons training, House of Prayer, Joint Leaders Meetings, Church Planter’s fellowship), .  If you have 4 meetings that happen once a month, that turns out to be weekly haha.  I’m usually committed 3 or 4 nights a week, every week.  #developleaders #purposeofchurch #makedisciples

• 1 on 1 Relationships: 8 hrs, since the beginning of the year I’ve made it a priority to personally get to know and start building relationships with everyone at a church.  My goal has been to meet four different people 1on1 or as a couple every week.  I’ve done this every week since the beginning of the year.  I used to think it was futile to try because we have 65 people on an average Sunday, which means at 4x a week i’ll meet everyone maybe once in 3 months!  However, now I’m taking the approach that even though it’s not great but it’s still a way to show people I care.  #fam

• Admin task examples: planning for Sunday, long range calendar planning, event planning, setting up and preparing for meetings, EM building maintenance, website/social media upkeep, updating church budget and receipts, blogging about church (like this post) and more… #visionplanning #unitycalendar #meetings

• Variations: Several times a year go to conferences in-town or out-of-town.  Pastor’s also have many things that come up with life circumstances that we do not control or schedule.  It means that we have an “on-call” lifestyle that we have to be ready to adjust and take on sometime’s in a moment’s notice.  These include: Weddings, funerals, hospital visits, emergency counseling sessions. #weddingsarefun #funeralsarenot

• Not counted as “work time”: family time I keep a rule to have 4 blocks of time with family per week.  Usually it happens on Monday (my one day off, most people get 2 days off), and in the afternoons I pickup Zane from school and spend a few hours with the kids before going to an evening meeting.  I also don’t count times of just hanging out in groups ie birthdays/outings, or 1 on 1’s outside of my 4x week quota.  #familytime

All in all, it’s a unique lifestyle that pastor’s have but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!  I love my church and I love my job.  It’s an incredible honor that I continually work on to improve.  I frequently ask older wiser pastors how I can improve and try to implement them.  I want to be the best pastor I can be for my people.  Love you guys!  - PD

Vision Pathway (Discovering GOD's vision for OUR church)

What is vision? It is our preferred future, our golden tomorrow.

Starting this month, the leaders and I have started a 6 month process to discover God’s vision for our church. We first want to know what does God want in his church. Then we want to ask what makes us unique as the Unity family. We want to dream together God-sized dreams of what could be in our church, in our families, and in our own lives.

Our process will consist of 2 monthly meetings: House of Prayer & Joint Leaders meetings.

1. House of Prayer - This will be on the 2nd Tuesday night of every month at 7pm Unity Chapel. This will be where we ask the question “What does GOD want in his church?” We believe the book of Acts is the gold standard for the church. Thus during the house of prayer we are reading thru the book of Acts and praying

2. Joint Leaders Meetings - This is a meeting for only the Shepherds, Co-Shepherds and SCW Team Leaders. We will meet on the last Sunday evening of every month. During this time we will follow the process called “Vision Pathway” developed by Will Mancini. Thank you Lifeway Leadership for providing access to such awesome training!

Why do we need a clear vision? A vision is a preferred future, a golden tomorrow. If we don’t set a clear vision, then an undesired vision will be set for us. We will end up where we did not intend to go. Our future will be determined for us, and it will probably be less than what we had hoped.

Please join us for the next House of Prayer on Feb 12 and also pray for us in general over these next few months.