6 Reasons to Join a Church
Dr. Jeffrey Johnson is the author of The Church series, a pastor at Grace Bible Church and the president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas, a community where he also resides with his wife Letha and their four children.
The following is adapted from Chapter 2 of The Church: Her Nature, Authority, Purpose, and Worship: “The Membership of the Church”.
1. Church Membership Is Assumed in the New Testament
The New Testament was written under the assumption that Christians are members of local churches because it was primarily written not to disconnected individuals but to various local churches. How did Paul communicate to the individual saints? He communicated to them by addressing his letters to churches and by having his letters read aloud in their gathered assemblies (Col. 4:16).
With the assumption that believers are members of a local church, Paul wrote his epistles, such as 1 Timothy, so that they “may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:14–15). If we need to know how to behave ourselves in the church, it implies that we are a member of a church. In fact, much of the responsibilities of the Christian life cannot be carried out independently of church membership.
Much of the New Testament cannot be properly understood and fully applied without the existence of church membership.
2. Church Membership Is Evidence of the New Birth
If the natural order is faith, baptism, then church membership (Acts 2:41, 47), then church membership is evidence of the new birth.
The saints love one another, they care for one another, and they feel closest to heaven when they are together. In the past, and even certain countries, persecution, distress, and various threats could not deter Christians from regularly assembling. Christians of old often met in the forests, fields, or even in dark dens or caves. They did not mind traveling many miles in difficult conditions. All they knew was that they loved the Lord and desired to meet with the brethren to worship the living God collectively and enjoy the fellowship of the saints. If someone does not love the brethren, even in their imperfect and unglorified state, then one must wonder if that person is truly born again into the family of God (1 John 3:14).
3. Church Membership Is Essential for Sanctification
The reason church membership is evidence of the new birth is that the Scripture teaches that when believers are united to Christ by the new birth, they are also mutually united into one body. This union is not merely symbolic or hypothetical but is purposeful in the productivity and functioning of every Christian. Christians are interwoven in such a fashion that they cannot properly function apart from one another (1 Cor. 12). Therefore, the notion that a Christian can operate and please God apart from the rest of the body of Christ is not only a prideful misconception, it’s an impossibility.
4. Church Membership Is Essential to Loving Christ
Christ loves the church enough to die for the church (Eph. 5:25). And though the church is not yet perfected (Eph. 5:26–27), Christ still loves the church. Therefore, how are we going to love Christ without loving that which He also loves? How can we say we love the Head of the church if we don’t also say we love the body of Christ—even in its imperfect state? To tell your spouse that you only love their head and not their body is an insult that will not go over very well. In the same way, by loving Christ, we are called to love the church. For this reason, I agree with Joel Beeke who asked: “If the Lord Jesus Christ cherished the Church so much that He died for her, is it too much for Him to ask His followers to cherish the Church and live for her?”
5. Church Membership Is Essential to Obedience
The Bible makes it clear that we are to be active members of a local church when it says: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb. 10:24–25).
Church membership is not only a direct command but many other commands in Scripture cannot be obeyed without being an active member of a local church:
One could not obey ruling elders (Heb. 13:17).
One could not properly participate in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10:17).
One could not come together with other Christians for corporate worship (Col. 3:16).
6. Church Membership Is God’s Means of Accountability
Church membership is more than getting our names on the church role and our phone numbers and pictures in the church directory. It is more than just the outward acknowledgment that we will make a particular church our new church home. Serious commitments and sobering consequences are involved in church membership. At the heart of church membership is accountability. We are called to commit and to submit to one another. The church is designed to minister, love, care, and watch over its members. This means that each member has a responsibility to love and pray for the body of Christ.
Conclusion
The fact that Christ died for the church must elevate it as more than just a Sunday morning punch-in, punch-out activity for us. Church membership is something that God requires of His people, which includes placing oneself under the care of the church and under the rule of the elders, committing to be faithful in attendance and a regular supporter of the ministry, and making oneself responsible for the spiritual well-being of others within the church body. Christ instituted the church for the saints; to shun it is to view oneself wiser than God (Matt. 16:18).
Other reasons could be given for church membership, but these are more than enough to prove that God requires His people to live out their Christian lives in the context of being active and faithful to a local body of believers. Much more needs to be said about the blessings and responsibility of church members, how local assemblies are to be established and governed, and what functions they are to carry out in their organized meetings, but at this point in our study, it is clear that church membership is not optional for the followers of Christ.