joining the church part three

Over the past two years as an IMB trustee, I have observed our policies regarding church planting with great interest. I have sometimes been concerned that we have tried to force international churches into our American church contextual model.

But is the American church one to be envied? Is our version of the local church the one we want to plant?

While we wrestle with the splinter issues of private prayer language and keeping "Baptist" in the name and who baptizes who and whether the hand of the administrator of baptism is as important as the heart of the believer, I believe we may have missed the plank in our own American church's eye.

The deeper question for the American church, I believe, is "have we become so anxious in putting people on our roles and bodies in our seats, that somewhere along the way we have lost the idea of genuine biblical community and regenerate membership?"

More than knowing WHO baptized our new member, I want to know IF they know Jesus and if they have demonstratable spiritual fruit from that conversion. Baptism is of course a part of that fruit, but it is not all, it seems to me.

In my two previous posts on "joining the church", I have been struggling with the idea of church membership. Is the way we do it biblical? Has the combined pressure of pragmatism and existentialism redefined church membership? I have shown how in just 2 centuries (in the American evangelical church), we have moved from meaningful church membership where the bar was high and members lived out their faith and mission within the context of biblical community to a situation today where many churches don't even know who their members are, much less whether or not they love Jesus. We may have a letter in our hands that says they have been baptized correctly, but what about the testimony of the life they have lived?

When church membership outnumbers worship attendance and Sunday School attendance two to one in the American church, something is wrong.

As one pastor said to me, "the FBI couldn't find half my members".

When I was at Southwestern Seminary years ago, one professor taught our class the three reasons to drop members (I am not kidding by the way):

1. If they die and you go to the funeral; or
2. If they move and you help them move; or
3. They join another church and you are there when they join.

All of this begs questions:

1. Why would we want members on our roll we can't find? And
2. Why would we want members on our roll who don't want to be?
3. Or maybe more important, why would we want members of our churches who aren't member of THE CHURCH?

I fear the answer to this has more to do with pragmatism than with biblical instruction. In seminary we were taught the growth spiral. But I am wondering now 20 years later, "where is all of this spiraling?"

Consider the latest research:

* The number of Americans who identify themselves as "Christian" has fallen below 80% for the first time in history.

* If the trend continues, more Americans will be non-Christian than Christian within 40 years.

* The number of teenagers who identify themselves as "born again" has declined to just 4%. (This percentage has declined dramatically in the past 40 years. We are losing our teenagers at alarming pace).

* By a three to one margin, Christians believe that truth is relative.

* In a typical week, a Mormon is more likely to read his Bible than either a protestant or catholic.

Commenting on this latest Barna research, Michael Horton observes:

(This research tells us) we are only replacing the dead, that the evangelical body is not growing. Churches are growing by the rearranging of the saints. Evangelicals are simply playing 'musical churches', moving around to more exciting, larger churches. The megachurch's feeder system is the smaller church and disgruntled believers who have quit their churches. What's going to happen when that feeder system dries up? What we are not doing is penetrating our world for Christ. Real evangelism, real discipleship, real outreach is simply not taking place on any serious level, as the cold facts plainly illustrate. Church growth has not happened, and instead of church growth principles replacing evangelism, they have merely succeeded in undermining it by placing success in the hands of technicians instead of the believing community as it discharges its duties in bearing witness to the gospel.

The megachurch has increased a hundred fold in the past 50 years, but my contention is that the church is less healthy today as a result of a humanistic, me-centered church corporation mindset. The result of the needs based market driven Wal Mart church is that we have created churches full of consumers who are not challenged in their faith. As we have made it easier for people to join our churches, members have found it easier to not take teaching seriously. Commitment to church discipline has declined in proportion to the demands and accountability of membership.

But it is not just slick programming and needs meeting that makes consumer driven religion attractive. It is also anonymity. One can become a member of a church without being under any spiritual authority or be involved in actual biblical community.

The result is that members of churches today do not feel challenged in any community sense, because there is no community. They do not read their Bibles, they do not share their faith, they do not take their faith seriously. They don't even believe in absolute truth. They want entertainment, and "feel good" existentially satisfying religion. They do not crave or understand biblical community. I am not conjecturing here, I am just reading the data.

How did we get in this situation? I believe it is because we have redefined church membership. Church membership today is less meaningful than joining a country club. Imagine a country club retaining members who do not pay their dues or meet any requirements of membership. You can't do it at the club, but you can in the church.

It only stands to reason that if the meaning of membership in churches has undergone such a dramatic downgrade, that the meaning of the disciplines of the faith would also not be taken seriously.

So, let's ask the 4th question, "Is this approach to church membership even biblical?" Is this the scriptural vision for the local church?

Consider:

In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul scolds the local church for building the church on a worldly pattern, building it out of the material of gold, silver and human invention. He says plainly:

"Do not deceive yourselves. If anyone thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise."

This is fascinating instruction to the church. It was not, "Hey guys, look at what the world does, and become wise in the techniques, inventions and strategies of the culture around you and apply that wisdom to the church.

No, he actually says something like this, "the gospel is foolishness. The church is foolish business- just admit that and forget the standards of the flesh. The world has superstars and super personalities; but you, Corinthian church, you should not be like that. What do you think you are doing following the personality cults of Apollis on the one hand and Paul on the other? Don't you know you can't build a church the way the world builds it's institutions with it's superstars and slick strategy? If you build a church by the worlds standards, who would want to be a part of that?"

What kind of teaching is this for the church! He addresses all kinds of issues in the Corinthian church- unity, the Lord's Supper, orderly worship, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage, food sacrificed to idols, spiritual gifts, giving. He doesn't once mention growth strategy or advice on how to get more people into the church.

In fact, he really only gives advice on how to get people OUT of the church. He deals with the subject of spiritual discipline and proper behavior and accountability within the church, but nothing about how to grow the church numerically.

I have had pastors suggest to me (and there was a time when I bought into this) that our number one priority should to increase numbers. That it is God's will for the church to grow numerically. The standard is NUMERICAL growth. So all of our strategic initiatives and energy must go gather people into the building on Sunday m0rning.

By this we do not mean THE church, we mean THIS church.

On the surface this seems to make sense. When you buy into the landmarkist logic that the local church is the Kingdom of God and that there is no such thing as an invisible church, you will naturally be more interested in building that local church as big as you can get it. Because if the local church is not growing, the Kingdom is not growing.

The irony is that most churches that are growing numerically today are really only gathering bodies from other churches. SO, follow the logic. "Our church is growing numerically, we must be blessed by God." Of course FBC Small Church down the road has just given you some members so they must now be out of God's blessing?

What happens when your church determines to start a church and sends out a hundred members? Are you out of God's will if you decline? What happens when you clean up your roles to actually reflect the true church- is that God's will? What happens when the members you do have learn to love and serve one another and actually get in each other's lives and live in biblical community?

What happens when your church reaches a saturation point? What happens when the law of diminishing returns kicks in? Are you then out of God's will? Is the church out of God's will? Does the advancement of the Kingdom depend on your gold and silver hay and stubble? Is it up to you Paul? To you Apollis?

Do you see how when we follow the logic, this kind of strategy puts us in a very difficult unscriptural position?

I think this is a mistaken interpretation of scripture. I believe scripture teaches not only that the church must grow numerically (this will often be the natural outcome), but that everyone in the church must live in genuine authentic biblical community. I believe that it is God's will for the church to be the church. For members of the church to actually love Jesus and serve Jesus and share their love for Him with others.

I believe that when the church is the church God meant it to be, the result will be that people will be saved, discipled, and brought into the natural biblical community that forms out of the church. I believe the result will be that churches will sometimes grow dramatically, sometimes they will help start other churches and sometimes they will stall while growing deeper in their love for Christ and His work. But the result will be the advancement of the Kingdom- the invisible church and His rule in their lives.

Paul wrote the book of 1 Corinthians primarily for correction and discipline and to tell the church who they should REMOVE from the roll.

In the book of Acts Annanais and Saphira ended up leaving the church feet first after lying about their tithe.

In fact, Paul repeated this same theme of church discipline and accountability in the church in every letter he wrote to the churches. Try to find one that does no mention the responsibilities of being the church and living your faith.

In 2 Thessalonians 3, he goes as far as to say that if anyone does not follow his teaching, meaning the instructions of scripture, they should be disassociated from the church: "Do not associate with him, that he may feel ashamed." (v. 14)

And why should these people be defellowshipped from the church? - because they don't work hard enough and provide for their families.

Try that on as a church growth strategy.

The truth is, if our biggest value is simply high attendance and big impressive numbers added to our local physical church, then we are often put in the awkward position of actually not obeying scripture's teaching on discipline and genuine biblical community and membership.

Here is what is clear in scripture:

1. The Bible in fact teaches church membership. You cannot be taken out of a body unless you were first part of a body. You cannot discipline one another if you don't know who is who.

2. Church members must be known. Scripture does not envision a church where people don't attend.

3. Church members are in biblical community. They pray for each other, love each other, eat with each other and bear each others burdens. They also confront one another when they sin.

4. The church is valued as the bride of Christ and community of Grace. There is no such thing as Christians who are not committed to the church.

So, how are we to insure that our church holds on to these values and lives up to the standard of scripture?

That will be my last post on this subject next week. But my next post will be on the Davinci Code.