Comments on: Wrestling with ideas about church membership

By: serial yp

serial yp — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:36:29 +0000

Yeah – that was the church I grew up in. They no longer are doing those things and haven’t for some time. But for a while it wasn’t good at all.

I agree with the giving. It’s an obedience to God thing not an obedience to the church thing. Pastors deal with enough crap with people the last thing they need to worry about is whether or not the Jones’ are tithing correctly or buying another boat and not tithing.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:44:24 +0000

Wow, yeah, those are abuses. I think, though, that the call then should be for reforms to the abuse, and not to just get rid of membership altogether.

At Imago our policy is that the pastor and elders have no visibility to how much individuals give. The pastor prefers it that way. And non-attending members should be contacted not to pressure them, but to try to understand why they’re staying away, and figure out what can be done to better minister to them.

I would be frightened to go to a church whose leadership used those tactics.

By: serial yp

serial yp — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:23:40 +0000

I have seen it being abused through the monitoring of what each member tithes – then the leadership approaches them and gives them an ultimatum..tithe or leave. I have seen the leadership leverage attendance with membership – i.e; “You haven’t been here for a few months so we’re dropping you from membership status” – I have seen it even when people are sick and really can’t make it.

My favorite is, “Well we are members so our kids get to participate in the ministry teams over kids whose parents aren’t members.”

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:35:03 +0000

@serial yp: How do you see/have you seen membership being abused?

By: serial yp

serial yp — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:22:07 +0000

Yeah I definitely understand from the perspective of church discipline. Without membership that one is a little hard to really implement and follow through on. And it’s not that I am opposed to church membership. Sometimes I just wonder about it or how it is used/ abused.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:46:30 +0000

Yeah, that’s a lot of what I’m thinking. All three of us elders went through an icky church discipline situation in the past couple of years. I’m also not sure, without formal membership, what kind of legal troubles you’d have in such a situation if it ever, God forbid, went that far.

By: serial yp

serial yp — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:43:00 +0000

so are you talking more along the lines of church discipline?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:35:01 +0000

And wow, if I’m gonna keep posting here and want comment threads, I’m gonna have to improve the theme a bit. It’s all too much the same. /aside

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:34:09 +0000

@serial yp: Good questions. I see value to membership from at least a couple of perspectives.

1) People expect it. Now, that’s not always a great reason, but in this case I think it’s a good one.

2) It’s a formal way to provide accountability for your congregation. Sure, you can say you’re gonna provide accountability even w/o membership, but as soon as the rubber hits the road and someone really has to be called to account, without membership in place, your accountability has no teeth to it.

By: serial yp

serial yp — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:27:50 +0000

I think it’s a good thing to wrestle through this topic. It is something that I often wrestle through myself. So my question is – Why have membership? I mean what does it really do? I always struggle when churches PUSH membership. Why do they do this?