“What is the point of church mem­ber­ship? I am already a Chris­t­ian and have a per­sonal rela­tion­ship with Jesus. Why do I need to become a mem­ber of a church?” Chances are we have asked those very ques­tions when we first encoun­tered a Reformed church. Church mem­ber­ship is a for­eign con­cept to many. Brought up in the rad­i­cal indi­vid­u­al­ism com­mon to Amer­i­can Chris­tian­ity, we might find the idea of for­mal mem­ber­ship in an estab­lished church to be anti­quated, unnec­es­sary, and maybe even legalistic.

Church mem­ber­ship also goes against the pop­u­lar notion in our cul­ture that “orga­nized reli­gion” is dif­fer­ent from “spir­i­tu­al­ity.” The for­mer is dis­par­aged as passé at best and hate­fully intol­er­ant at worst, while the lat­ter is read­ily embraced as chic and healthy. Orga­nized reli­gion is viewed as some­thing very par­tic­u­lar that man­i­fests itself in nar­row doc­trines, litur­gi­cal cus­toms, and exclu­sive tra­di­tion. Spir­i­tu­al­ity, on the other hand, is seen as some­thing uni­ver­sal that can express itself in a wide vari­ety of per­sonal faiths and indi­vid­ual prac­tices that gen­er­ally seek one com­mon goal: self-improvement. Influ­enced by this mode of think­ing, many pro­fess­ing Chris­tians believe they can have mem­ber­ship in the invis­i­ble church while opt­ing out of mem­ber­ship in the vis­i­ble church.

And things do not appear to be improv­ing. Indi­ca­tors show this sen­ti­ment to be on the rise, not the decline. Accord­ing to mar­ket research guru George Barna, estab­lished churches are rapidly becom­ing a thing of the past. “Based on our research,” says Barna, “I have pro­jected that by the year 2010, 10 to 20 per­cent of Amer­i­cans will derive all their spir­i­tual input (and out­put) through the Inter­net.” Why be incon­ve­nienced by attend­ing (let alone becom­ing a mem­ber of) a church when one can get the same spir­i­tual ben­e­fits in pri­vate? Says Barna, “Ours is not the busi­ness of orga­nized reli­gion, cor­po­rate wor­ship, or Bible teach­ing. If we ded­i­cate our­selves to such a busi­ness we will be left by the way­side as the cul­ture moves for­ward. Those are the frag­ments of a larger pur­pose to which we have been called by God’s Word. We are in the busi­ness of life transformation.”

Since “life trans­for­ma­tion” can come from a mul­ti­plic­ity of meth­ods in our fast-paced cul­ture of tech­nol­ogy and per­sonal con­ve­nience, the church needs to update itself if it wants to remain rel­e­vant to spir­i­tual con­sumers. Orga­nized churches that require for­mal mem­ber­ship are not the sort of thing the experts have in mind.

So why then do Reformed churches require mem­ber­ship? What exactly is church mem­ber­ship and why is it necessary?

What Is Church Mem­ber­ship?
Church mem­ber­ship is a for­mal, covenan­tal rela­tion­ship between a fam­ily or indi­vid­ual and a true, local man­i­fes­ta­tion of Christ’s vis­i­ble church. It begins with the under­stand­ing that Christ not only pos­sesses an invis­i­ble church, that is, all the elect peo­ple of God whose names are writ­ten in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev 21.27), but has also estab­lished a vis­i­ble church on earth (Matt 28.18–20).

God first insti­tuted this vis­i­ble church imme­di­ately after the fall when he sep­a­rated the seed of the woman from the seed of the ser­pent and estab­lished them as a peo­ple united in his promise of sal­va­tion (Gen 3.15). He fur­ther estab­lished his com­mu­nity when he made his covenant with the patri­arch Abra­ham and his off­spring (Gen 12, 15, 17) and ful­filled his promises, first in the nation Israel and the promised land of Canaan, but more fully in the per­son and work of Jesus Christ. Through­out the unfold­ing drama of redemp­tive his­tory, from the days of Abra­ham to Christ, God kept his peo­ple as a vis­i­ble covenant com­mu­nity marked by the covenan­tal sign and seal of circumcision.

With the com­ple­tion of Christ’s earthly min­istry and the inau­gu­ra­tion of the new covenant, how­ever, God no longer con­fined his vis­i­ble church to one peo­ple (national Israel) and one place (Pales­tine). Hav­ing sat­is­fied the Law of Moses in his life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion, Christ com­mis­sioned his apos­tles to preach the Gospel, bap­tize, admin­is­ter the Lord’s Sup­per, and make dis­ci­ples to the ends of the earth. As the book of Acts reveals, the apos­tles ful­filled this com­mis­sion by plant­ing churches (Acts 2.42). Begin­ning in Jerusalem, Christ added daily to his church those who were being saved (Acts 2.41, 47; 4.4). The vis­i­ble, covenant com­mu­nity became a “cho­sen race, a royal priest­hood, a holy nation, a peo­ple for his own pos­ses­sion” (1 Pet 2.9a; cf. Ex 19.6) made up of peo­ple ran­somed “from every tribe and lan­guage and peo­ple and nation” (Rev 5.9b).

After the apos­tles died, though, the vis­i­ble church did not cease to exist. The New Tes­ta­ment makes very clear that Christ has intended his vis­i­ble church to con­tinue until the end of the age. He ordained the office of pas­tor to feed his flock with the preach­ing of the Gospel so that his sheep will be healthy and grow to matu­rity (Rom 10.14–17; Eph 4.11–16; 2 Tim 4.1–5; Titus 1.5–9). He has sup­plied his church with the tan­gi­ble ele­ments of ordi­nary water, bread, and wine in the sacra­ments, which the Holy Spirit uses to nour­ish our faith (1 Cor 10.16; 11.17–34; cf. John 6.41–58). He gave the office of elder so that his peo­ple will have guardians over their souls and gov­er­nors keep­ing order (Acts 14.23; Phil 1.1; 1 Tim 3.1–7; 5.17; Heb 13.17; 1 Pet 5.1–4). He main­tains the purity and peace of his church through the exer­cise of dis­ci­pline (Mt 18.15–20; 1 Cor 5; 2 Thes 3.6, 14–15; Titus 1.10–14; 3.9–11). He has pro­vided the office of dea­con to ensure care for the poor and needy in the con­gre­ga­tion (Acts 6.1–7; Phil 1.1; 1 Tim 3.8–13; 5.3–15). He pours out gifts upon his church so that each believer uses his or her gifts for the ben­e­fit of oth­ers (Rom 12.3–8; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4.15–16). Every­where, the New Tes­ta­ment reveals to us a church estab­lished by Christ that is an observ­able, iden­ti­fi­able soci­ety made up of real flesh and blood mem­bers and real orga­ni­za­tion and structure.

Church mem­ber­ship, there­fore, is about belong­ing to this vis­i­ble, iden­ti­fi­able com­mu­nity as it is man­i­fested in the local con­gre­ga­tion. The church is not a store fre­quented by loyal cus­tomers. Nor is it a vol­un­tary asso­ci­a­tion of indi­vid­u­als loosely united by con­sumer pref­er­ences or cul­tural prac­tices. Rather, the church is the peo­ple who belong to Christ, and the place where Christ meets them through the means he has ordained.

When a fam­ily or an indi­vid­ual pur­sues for­mal church mem­ber­ship, they are say­ing, “We are Chris­tians. There­fore we belong to Christ and his body.” They and their chil­dren pass through the waters of bap­tism, acknowl­edg­ing that they are part of some­thing much larger than their own pri­vate, spir­i­tual expe­ri­ence. They rec­og­nize that Christ has set them as liv­ing stones in his one tem­ple (Eph 4.19–22; 1 Pet 2.4–5) and gath­ered them as sheep in his one flock (John 10.1–29; Acts 20.28). They take pub­lic vows in the holy assem­bly of God’s peo­ple in which they pro­fess their faith in Christ and their will­ing­ness to sub­mit to his Lord­ship and the gov­ern­ment of his church. Like­wise, the con­gre­ga­tion receives them and acknowl­edges their oblig­a­tion to them as fel­low mem­bers of God’s family.

Why Is Church Mem­ber­ship Nec­es­sary?
“All of this sounds great,” one might say, “but I just want to attend this church. Why is it nec­es­sary that I become a mem­ber?” Some peo­ple rec­og­nize the vis­i­bil­ity of Christ’s church and enjoy attend­ing wor­ship ser­vices, but view mem­ber­ship as lit­tle more than an unnec­es­sary formality.

The Bible, how­ever, gives us at least three rea­sons why mem­ber­ship in a local con­gre­ga­tion is essential.

1. Sub­mis­sion to Christ
Christ is the Head of his church (Eph 1.22–23; 4.15), the King of his king­dom (Matt 28.18; Heb 2.8–9; 1 Cor 15.25; cf. Ps 110.1). Christ was not only cru­ci­fied and raised from the dead, he also ascended into heaven and was exalted at the right hand of the Father. In other words, he not only saves, he also rules. And the way he rules his cit­i­zens is through his Word and Spirit, chiefly through the offi­cers he has appointed at the local con­gre­ga­tion. Con­sider the exhor­ta­tion the writer to the Hebrews gives at the end of his sermon-letter: “Obey your lead­ers and sub­mit to them, for they are keep­ing watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groan­ing, for that would be of no advan­tage to you” (Heb 13.17). This is Christ’s design. As his sub­jects and pos­ses­sion, we must sub­mit to what he has ordained.

But how can we do that with­out church mem­ber­ship? Mem­ber­ship in a local con­gre­ga­tion cre­ates a for­mal rela­tion­ship between the elders and the con­gre­gants. It is a covenant that oblig­ates the elders to watch over the souls of those who belong to Christ. It is there­fore part of our sub­mis­sion to our Lord. As Michael Hor­ton has pointed out, “We are com­manded not to become self-feeders who mature beyond the nur­ture of the church, but to sub­mit our­selves to the preach­ing, teach­ing, and over­sight of those shep­herds whom God has placed over us in Christ.”

It has been the his­tor­i­cal prac­tice of Reformed churches to require a pub­lic vow to that end. For exam­ple, the fourth and final vow of Pub­lic Pro­fes­sion of Faith Form Num­ber 1 in the Psalter-Hymnal (used by the United Reformed Churches in North Amer­ica) asks: “Do you promise to sub­mit to the gov­ern­ment of the church and also, if you should become delin­quent either in doc­trine or in life, to sub­mit to its admo­ni­tion and discipline?”

This prac­tice, how­ever, is pre­cisely where the prover­bial “rub­ber meets the road” for many peo­ple. Priz­ing their free­dom to roam where they please, they sim­ply can­not bring them­selves to sub­mit to Christ’s del­e­gated author­ity in his vis­i­ble church. Kim Rid­dle­barger has appro­pri­ately labeled these folks as spir­i­tual drifters: “Spir­i­tual drifters…make lit­tle or no com­mit­ment to a par­tic­u­lar con­gre­ga­tion (much less express loy­alty to a par­tic­u­lar denom­i­na­tion and spe­cific doc­trine). These drifters will move from one church to another just as soon some­thing offends their fickle sen­si­tiv­i­ties, or when the preach­ing and music fails to keep them in rapt attention.”

Spir­i­tual drifters need to be con­fronted with texts such as Hebrews 13.17. One sim­ply can­not claim to love Christ while despis­ing his Body. One can­not have Christ as Sav­ior while refus­ing him as Lord.

2. Account­abil­ity and Dis­ci­pline
One of the ways in which Christ watches over our souls through the lead­ers in the local church is by the exer­cise of church dis­ci­pline. Church dis­ci­pline is the prac­tice of apply­ing the Word of God to mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion who are in rebel­lion (i.e. unre­pen­tant of a par­tic­u­lar sin) or involved in some pub­lic scan­dal that affects the health of the church as a whole. The goal of church dis­ci­pline is the restora­tion of erring dis­ci­ples, the preser­va­tion of the church’s doc­trine, the peace and purity of the con­gre­ga­tion, and the pro­tec­tion of the church’s rep­u­ta­tion in the eyes of the unbe­liev­ing world.

Christ gave his church the author­ity to exer­cise dis­ci­pline when he said to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the king­dom of heaven; what­ever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what­ever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16.19). Reformed churches have under­stood these keys to be the preach­ing of the Gospel and the exer­cise of church dis­ci­pline. The Hei­del­berg Cat­e­chism (1563) puts it like this:

83. Q. What are the keys of the king­dom of heaven?

A. The preach­ing of the holy gospel and church dis­ci­pline. By these two the king­dom of heaven is opened to believ­ers and closed to unbelievers.

84. Q. How is the king­dom of heaven opened and closed by the preach­ing of the gospel?

A. Accord­ing to the com­mand of Christ, the king­dom of heaven is opened when it is pro­claimed and pub­licly tes­ti­fied to each and every believer that God has really for­given all their sins for the sake of Christ’s mer­its, as often as they by true faith accept the promise of the gospel. The king­dom of heaven is closed when it is pro­claimed and tes­ti­fied to all unbe­liev­ers and hyp­ocrites that the wrath of God and eter­nal con­dem­na­tion rest on them as long as they do not repent. Accord­ing to this tes­ti­mony of the gospel, God will judge both in this life and in the life to come.

85. Q. How is the king­dom of heaven closed and opened by church discipline?

A. Accord­ing to the com­mand of Christ, peo­ple who call them­selves Chris­tians but show them­selves to be unchris­t­ian in doc­trine or life are first repeat­edly admon­ished in a broth­erly man­ner. If they do not give up their errors or wicked­ness, they are reported to the church, that is, to the elders. If they do not heed also their admo­ni­tions, they are for­bid­den the use of the sacra­ments, and they are excluded by the elders from the Chris­t­ian con­gre­ga­tion, and by God Him­self from the king­dom of Christ. They are again received as mem­bers of Christ and of the church when they promise and show real amendment.

Reformed churches con­fess this because it is what the New Tes­ta­ment teaches. Jesus gave instruc­tion on dis­ci­pline and pub­lic excom­mu­ni­ca­tion in Matthew 18.15–20. Paul wrote a whole chap­ter to the church in Corinth describ­ing how sex­ual immoral­ity amongst Chris­tians defiles the church and that the offender, if unre­pen­tant, is to be excom­mu­ni­cated and deliv­ered to Satan (1 Cor 5). Other exam­ples abound (1 Tim 1.18–20; 6.3–5; 2 Tim 2.14–18; Tit 1.10–14; 3.10–11).

With­out church mem­ber­ship, how­ever, the church can­not fully use the keys Christ has given her. The elders can­not excom­mu­ni­cate an unre­pen­tant offender who was never in com­mu­nion with the church in the first place. Church mem­ber­ship, there­fore, pro­vides every mem­ber of the con­gre­ga­tion – includ­ing the min­is­ter and elders – with account­abil­ity. It allows the elders to ful­fill their duty of ensur­ing that purity of doc­trine and holi­ness of life are prac­ticed; it per­mits the dea­cons to care for the needy within the church (Acts 6.1–7; 1 Tim 5.9); and it makes every mem­ber in the con­gre­ga­tion respon­si­ble for his doc­trine and life.

The per­son who does not join a true con­gre­ga­tion of Christ’s vis­i­ble church, how­ever, is account­able to no one but him­self. He opts for a life of “Lone Ranger Chris­tian­ity,” act­ing as his own pas­tor, elder and deacon.

3. Spir­i­tual Nur­ture through the Sacra­ments
Church mem­ber­ship allows a dis­ci­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the sacra­ments and thereby receive the spir­i­tual ben­e­fits which the Holy Spirit pro­vides through them (1 Cor 10.16). The “spir­i­tual drifter” often pre­sumes that he has a right to par­tic­i­pate in the sacra­ments at any wor­ship ser­vice he chooses to attend, sim­ply by virtue of his per­sonal rela­tion­ship with Jesus. What he has yet to under­stand, how­ever, is that Christ’s sacra­ments are insep­a­ra­bly related to church membership.

One does not have the right to be bap­tized with­out join­ing the vis­i­ble church. Christ insti­tuted Chris­t­ian bap­tism as a one-time, ini­tia­tory sacra­ment that not only sig­ni­fies the wash­ing away of sins with his aton­ing blood, but also iden­ti­fies the bap­tized per­son as a mem­ber of God’s vis­i­ble covenant com­mu­nity, much as cir­cum­ci­sion did in the old covenant (Matt 28.18–20; Acts 2.39). Thus, one is bap­tized into church mem­ber­ship and under the over­sight of a local body of elders. Bap­tism can­not be sep­a­rated from church membership.

Like­wise, one does not have the right to par­take of the Lord’s Table with­out church mem­ber­ship. Christ estab­lished the Lord’s Sup­per as a holy meal for the mem­bers of his church. It not only sig­ni­fies his body and blood offered on the cross, but also nour­ishes the faith of repen­tant sin­ners (1 Cor 10.16; cf. John 6.22–60). As the gov­er­nors and over­seers of the church (Rom 12.8; 1 Cor 12.28; 1 Tim 3.1–7), the elders have the respon­si­bil­ity of super­vis­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Lord’s Table and ensur­ing, as much as pos­si­ble, that peo­ple do not par­take in an unwor­thy man­ner (1 Cor 11.17–34). The Hei­del­berg Cat­e­chism sum­ma­rizes the New Testament’s teach­ing in this way:

81. Q. Who are to come to the Lord’s Table?

A. Those who are dis­pleased with them­selves because of their sins, but who nev­er­the­less trust that their sins are par­doned and that their con­tin­u­ing weak­ness is cov­ered by the suf­fer­ing and death of Christ, and who also desire more and more to strengthen their faith and to lead a bet­ter life.

Hyp­ocrites and those who are unre­pen­tant, how­ever, eat and drink judg­ment on themselves.

82. Q. Are those to be admit­ted to the Lord’s Sup­per who show by what they say and do that they are unbe­liev­ing and ungodly?

A. No, that would dis­honor God’s covenant and bring down God’s anger upon the entire con­gre­ga­tion. There­fore, accord­ing to the instruc­tion of Christ and his apos­tles, the Chris­t­ian church is duty-bound to exclude such peo­ple, by the offi­cial use of the keys of the king­dom, until they reform their lives.

Reformed churches have sought to apply this teach­ing by requir­ing a pub­lic pro­fes­sion of faith and mem­ber­ship in good stand­ing from all who come to the Lord’s Table.

The bot­tom line is that par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sacra­ments requires bib­li­cal church mem­ber­ship. While Christ has appointed the sacra­ments as vis­i­ble signs and seals of the Gospel for the nour­ish­ment of our souls, he did not design them to be indi­vid­u­al­is­tic prac­tices. The sacra­ments are acts of divine ser­vice to his assem­bled peo­ple on the Lord’s Day. He con­de­scends to his flock so that he can feed them with his means of grace.

The spir­i­tual drifter, how­ever, who is not account­able to a local con­gre­ga­tion nor in sub­mis­sion to Christ’s author­ity as it is del­e­gated to church offi­cers, seems to think he knows what is best for his spir­i­tual well­be­ing, even if it is con­trary to what God has revealed. Refus­ing to join Christ’s vis­i­ble church and sub­mit to Christ’s author­ity, he dis­qual­i­fies him­self from par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sacra­ments to the injury of his own soul.

Thus, Reformed churches con­fess in Arti­cle 28 of the Bel­gic Con­fes­sion: “We believe, since this holy assem­bly and con­gre­ga­tion is the assem­bly of the redeemed and there is no sal­va­tion out­side of it, that no one ought to with­draw from it, con­tent to be by him­self, no mat­ter what his sta­tus or stand­ing may be.” The fact that in this life the vis­i­ble church is imper­fect and mixed with hyp­ocrites gives no Chris­t­ian the right to depart from it. As the Third-Century church leader Cyprian put it, “You can­not have God for your father unless you have the Church for your mother. If you could escape out­side Noah’s ark, you could escape out­side the Church.” Except in oth­er­wise extra­or­di­nary cases, a per­son can­not belong to the one, holy, catholic and apos­tolic church with­out also belong­ing to a vis­i­ble man­i­fes­ta­tion of the same, which, accord­ing to the New Tes­ta­ment, is the local con­gre­ga­tion that preaches the gospel, admin­is­ters the sacra­ments, and exer­cises church discipline.

If we pro­fess to be Chris­tians, we must prac­tice the Chris­t­ian faith accord­ing to the New Tes­ta­ment and not accord­ing to our opin­ions. The New Tes­ta­ment makes it clear that every Chris­t­ian is to be bap­tized into the body of Christ and be account­able for his doc­trine and life. It tells us that God has pro­vided us with pas­tors, elders, and dea­cons, as well as the com­mu­nion of saints in the local church. If you have been bap­tized but you are not a mem­ber of a true con­gre­ga­tion of Christ’s church, you are liv­ing an irreg­u­lar and unbib­li­cal Chris­t­ian life. The Lord calls you to repen­tance. He is calls you to come home to the safety and ben­e­fit of his sheep­fold. I urge you to join a true church as soon as pos­si­ble, a body of believ­ers that con­fess the truth, sub­mit to the author­ity of Christ as del­e­gated to elders, and meet each week to receive Christ in Word and sacra­ment. You are not free to roam as a spir­i­tual drifter on the inter­net or as a per­pet­ual vis­i­tor from church to church. Find a good and true church and join it. There is no bet­ter place for us to be in this life than to take our place in the body of Christ and enjoy the com­mu­nion of saints in the local church.