The meaning of church membership is relatively difficult to define in a very comprehensive way. We know the sacrament of baptism is the moment of our initiation into the body of Christ, and we may have heard references to the difference between “professing” and “covenant” members, but these finer points of theology do not offer complete clarity about what “membership” actually means.
Nonetheless, we are constantly inundated with statistics based on the concept of church membership. Sociologists make dire predictions about the future of the Presbyterian Church in Canada – and upon organized religion in general – based on their analyses of census data about the declining number of church members. Church growth experts prognosticate on the implications of this decline in membership over the short, middle and (if they are to be believed, the non-existent) long-term periods.
Some suggest that the number of people in worship may offer a more accurate way to assess church participation than the number of members on a constituent roll. While there is some validity in focussing on worship attendance, it raises other important questions about whether or not worship should be viewed as the defining activity for being an active member of the church.
The implications of the membership question are more significant than we might, at first, realize. After all, major decisions about priorities in mission, about national staff positions, and about funding for congregational initiatives continue to be informed by membership data. So, it might be asked, if membership is such an important component in these conversations about our vitality, our future and our identity, what does membership actually mean?
Although this is a question that is raised at every level of the church – from our ecumenical involvements to our local presbyteries – it is also a very practical question at a congregational level. After all, every congregation is invited to wrestle with this question whenever newcomers, upon being asked if they are interested in joining the community, respond with the obvious question – “maybe … but what does it mean to become a member of the church?”
Four Tried (but-not-so-true) Answers
Many of us have heard it said that becoming a member of the church gives a person the right to vote at congregational meetings, and to participate in the call and election of ministers and elders. While this may be true, it is rather doubtful that there is anyone who is so desperate to vote at a typical Presbyterian congregational meeting that they would actually attend membership classes simply to acquire this noble right.
Another explanation, formerly, was that membership allows a person to participate in the sacrament of communion. At one time, this reason may have had some validity in congregations in which participation in communion was limited to those who had gone through membership or confirmation classes. Such is no longer the case. Rather, the journey towards a table that is open to all, including children, makes this explanation for membership increasingly anachronistic.
Regrettably, this supposed link between membership and communion led our ancestors to use the sacrament as one of the criteria for assessing active membership. This continues to be reflected in the Book of Forms, which suggests that a person is a member “in good standing” if they have participated in communion at least once in two years. By this criteria, a person can attend one worship service in a two-year span – all the while making no other qualitative, financial or temporal contributions to the life of their congregation – and still be considered an active member if they received communion the one time they happened to attend. Active membership must mean more than that.
A third explanation for membership has been that each of the members is assigned to an elder, who is entrusted with responsibility for their spiritual care. While this is a vital dimension of the elders’ responsibilities in a Presbyterian form of church organization, the reality is that this is a sadly lacking component of many congregations. Moreover, there are many new members to the church who neither understand, nor fully welcome, the pastoral role that elders have traditionally played – to say nothing of those elders who feel uncomfortable and inadequate in fulfilling this pastoral responsibility.
A fourth explanation for membership relies upon the metaphor of marriage. Like a wedding, vows of loyalty are made at the time of becoming a member. On many levels this may be a helpful metaphor. But there are difficulties in the use of the image of marriage to explain membership. After all, many marriages end in brokenness, which does not negate the validity of marriage, but simply acknowledges it is a painful experience for many. Moreover, the decision to move to another congregation may make a person feel unfaithful to their original vows if the marriage metaphor is overly used. Many would not make such metaphorical links, but explaining membership in relation to marriage may have pitfalls that would be wise to avoid.
So setting aside these four commonly offered explanations for the meaning of membership we return to the question: What does membership mean?
This question led us to invite a number of friends, elders and congregation members to offer their own reflections. Their responses served to remind us that, like so many dimensions of our faith, membership is a concept with many facets of meaning.
Membership as Belonging
Many of the responses touched on the image of membership in relation to the concept of belonging, or of being a part of a family. As one person wrote, “Off the top of my head, it means belonging to a spiritual family, the members of which, like in all families, have individual personalities and interests, but are united in their faith and in their caring for one another.” A similar sentiment was expressed by a friend who wrote, “It hopefully provides a moral and loving community,” but then jokingly added that they had once heard someone state that, “You can’t work in a church and be a Christian!”
A new elder in one of our congregations stated that, for her, membership in a congregation meant that, “You always have a place. A place where you are never alone. A place where you can go but also with people that will never leave your side, always love and support you and when you alone can’t stand against the rough time or walk the rough road – they will be there to help you, hold you, carry you, and love you.”
While there are limitations to this image of the church as a family – not least in the fact that many congregations are affected by as much dysfunction as can be found in many families – there are important strengths to this link between membership and belonging. Such a notion implies an intentional commitment to others, and thereby helps challenge our contemporary culture’s consumerist approach to church participation and spirituality. In an age when some people go church shopping with the unexamined assumption that the benefits of life in community are commodities to be assessed in the same way that other consumables are assessed, the decision to become a member of a community reflects a willingness to commit oneself to share in the joys, the celebrations, and the struggles of life together – not simply for the sake of the benefits that one will receive.
This idea of membership as belonging also reflects the deeper spiritual reality of membership as a way of affirming one’s baptismal identity as a constituent part of the body of Christ. The Living Faith statement reflects this dimension of membership in its declaration that, “Those baptized in infancy are called in later years to make personal profession of Christ.” While a baptized person without formal membership in a congregation is still a part of the body of Christ, the decision to become a member of a congregation reflects their desire to make a public profession of their spiritual identity.
Membership as Partnership in Ministry
A second important theme in many of the responses connected the concept of membership with a desire to become a partner in the ministry of a particular congregation. This seemed significant. Such an understanding of membership reflects a desire to dedicate one’s gifts, resources, time, attention and energy to the ministry of a local community in a particular space and time. As one person wrote, “It is saying, ‘Yes!’ to standing alongside a worshipping, serving fellowship of people as we try to hear and learn from Jesus’ voice in scripture, as we celebrate the sacraments of baptism and communion, as we worship, pray, sing and learn together, as we care for one another and as we share Jesus’ love, peace and hope with a hurting world.” Such a definition clearly reflects that membership is more than showing up for an hour on Sunday morning! While God is, by no means, confined to the church, the nebulous concept of encountering God in nature or on the golf course as a substitute for church participation reflect a limited awareness that the calling of Christ is meant to draw us into communion with others, and into communities in which there is a shared ministry of compassion and praise, service and prayer.
The implications for this concept of membership as partnership in ministry bear particular importance for sessions and for congregational mission committees. That is, if membership is viewed as partnership in ministry, it becomes incumbent upon congregations to clearly define the specific nature of their ministry, and to offer ways for individuals to use their gifts in the ministry of their community. To say, “We love God and our neighbours,” can be a faithful articulation, but it is necessary for the congregation to try to prayerfully work out how that might take shape in their particular context.
Membership as a Resource for Discipleship
In our modern era, where participation in organized religion is often viewed in marked distinction from the concept of ‘spirituality,’ we found it interesting that many of the comments reflected the idea that membership had led to a deepened level of spiritual commitment. One of the respondents – whose career, it should be noted, was in the medical sciences – offered the comment that “church membership adds a necessary spiritual component with mystery and purpose to our secular humanist world devoid of God where all nature is rationalized by science.” Such a comment clearly highlights the depth that dedicated membership in a congregation can potentially add to one’s spiritual life.
In some ways, this may be the most overlooked dimension of membership – that it can be an indispensable resource for a more passionate and more dedicated life of discipleship. Recent church surveys – including the Natural Church Development research – seem to indicate that one of the major weaknesses in many mainline congregations is a lack of “passionate spirituality.” One person, who grew up in a different part of the world, stated that they had been brought up with the understanding that the church would provide spiritual nourishment and opportunities for holistic growth, and that the members would contribute resources and time in order to make their congregation sustainable and viable in its private life and its public witness. “However,” she wrote, “in the North American context, this focus is not well defined or practiced.” A renewed understanding of church membership as a resource for discipleship may help to address this weakness.
Such an understanding of membership will have consequences for our life in community. After all, if congregations are going to become more effective resources for discipleship, it will be necessary to shift our understanding from the idea of active church participation as membership in a social club towards the idea of discipleship in a spiritual community. The strength that can come from life in such a spiritual community was reflected in the comment of one individual who stated, in response to the question why he became a member, “Because I can’t follow Jesus alone; it’s too hard.”
Such a statement reflects a central tenet of Christian spirituality – that we live in the communion of saints as the Holy Spirit animates our interpretation of scripture and guides us in our journey together as followers of the risen and living Christ. This also serves to remind us that the church – and its membership – cannot, ultimately, be explained entirely on sociological or anthropological grounds. Rather, we believe in the power and the activity of the Holy Spirit. As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we have historically upheld the power and the function of scripture in the Spirit’s work of shaping and forming the church – but this is a double-edged reality. This means, as Fred Craddock (the New Testament professor at Emory University) reminds us, that membership in this Spirit-led community means, “Being responsible to and being responsible for the scriptures.” Thus membership is not just about a sociological community: it is called by God, animated by the Holy Spirit, guided by scripture, abiding in Christ – together.
The Meaning of Membership
So what does it mean to become a member of the church?
It means that we are publicly affirming our baptismal identity as people who belong to the body of Christ; it means that we are dedicating our lives to becoming partners in the ministry of a community of faith; it means that we are embracing the gift of community as a resource for deepening our calling to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
At the very heart of all of these reflections about the meaning of membership is the conviction that our relationship with Christ has relational implications. Such an understanding of membership in community as a requisite component of Christian discipleship was beautifully articulated by the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his work entitled Life Together, in which he wrote, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. … What does this mean? It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.”
In other words, on our better days, our life together in the church is meant to be a foreshadowing of heaven. Which, we think, is a fairly good explanation of what membership means.
