Friday, April 18, 2008

Church membership

A reader of this blog recently e-mailed me a question that I thought would be important to share with you and to ask how you would respond. I did request the pastor's permission before sharing his question in this space, and he gave me permission to do so.

This pastor has a person in the church who has limited capacity to understand some things due to a disease. This individual has professed faith in Jesus Christ and been baptized. The parents are strong members of this pastor's church. The individual has requested to become a member of the church, but the pastor was concerned that the individual might not be able to understand what church membership means. This church is also in the process of re-writing its church documents to specify more clearly what church membership means. The pastor asked for my thoughts on this issue.

I'll share my response in a later blog, but I'm interested in hearing from our readers. Would you allow this person to become a member of your church even if the individual might have a limited understanding of what church membership means? If the church did accept this person as a member, how would that affect the re-writing of the church documents intended to strengthen the meaning of church membership? If someone may not be able to understand the purpose of church membership, can they understand enough about Jesus Christ to accept Him as Lord and Savior? Would you consider this person's acceptance of faith in Christ as valid? Would you baptize someone with developmental challenges?

One reason I was interested in posting this question is because we seldom consider such issues in our bivocational churches. I am very familiar with hundreds of bivocational churches in many parts of the country, and I don't know of any, until now, who have had to consider these types of questions. I believe the best time to consider our responses to these issues is before we are confronted with them, so this can be a time of real learning for many of us. I hope to hear from everyone of our readers on this issue.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is sais that man looks at the outward appearance, but that God looks at the heart. Although I value church membership, what I value more is my relationship with Him. This topic teaters so much on the concept of "Religion" we must be very careful. The great thing about God and how much He loves us is that He has chosen to make His ways so simple. So simple in fact that most can not accept them for what they are. If you boil it down, isn't that what religion really is...adding something, making rules that God really did not intend to be there? God has asked for us to do a lot of things, but how many of the things he has asked of us keep us from saving faith? The more I get to know God, the more I see him working in people lives, the more I realize how much we confuse what God intended to be so simple. My father-in-law has a saying that I really like when it comes to a lot of these topics...what he says is..."we can agree or disagree on a lot of topics - but what we must agree on is...who is Jesus, and what did he do for us". I do believe that we should examine and challenge each other in regards to the validity of our faith, but in the end, isn't it Gods job to judge our hearts. I was raised in a church where when you wanted to get baptized, you had to attend a bunch of classes, and be interviews before you were baptized. The church I attend now does what we call spontanious baptisms. I really had a hard time with this at first, but the more I think about it, the closer to the truth I think it really is, when Jesus baptized he never held any classes. People got saved, and then they got baptized. I do not say any of this to draw any lines in the sand or say that what anyone else does is right or wrong, I say it only to challenge us all to ask ourselves what really matters, God does require that we accept His Son, and only His payment for our sins. He also asks us to have faith like that of a child. Children always use the "KISS" principle (keep it simple stupid), that's why God hold them in such high regard. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to comment. :)