By now most readers have heard of the arrest of a man who was plotting to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh. I feel like someone has expressed concern about and basically predicted this kind of thing before….here and here.
The Scope of Church Membership
This past Tuesday I presented a seminar at the State Association of Missouri Free Will Baptists entitled, “Reclaiming Biblical Church Membership.” In it I offered a definition of church membership, six reasons why it’s biblical and essential to church health and growth, and ten steps for how to reclaim it in our churches.
I didn’t find it difficult to compile the material and arguments for the seminar; I found it incredibly difficult to present it and take questions in a 50-minute slot. The truth is that membership isn’t a program that can be prepackaged and reduced to an 8- or 10-slide Powerpoint presentation. It gets to the heart of what it means to be the body of Christ. It’s a spiritual reality, theological concept, and exercise in commitment all wrapped in one.
This is, I think, the “meta-aspect” about communicating the truths surrounding church membership. It’s foundational to everything else about church life.
Take something in vogue these days like church revitalization. Seminars and books on the topic fill our schedules and shelves. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, efforts to see true and lasting vitality in a congregation will be futile if we don’t ever zero in on what it actually means for Christians to identify with the church, come under its discipline, and function as accountable members.
Then consider something like congregational church government. Such an approach to church polity means the congregation is entrusted with certain decisions. Of course, this raises an obvious question: who is the congregation? Are only those members in good standing permitted a vote? If so, how do we create clarity about who such persons are?
On a very practical note, most church constitutions stipulate that a quorum must be present to conduct a legitimate and binding vote. If membership practices have been neglected, churches tend to have artificially inflated membership rolls which don’t reflect the regular attendance and participation in the ministry. It’s difficult enough to gather members for a business meeting. It’s going to be nearly impossible to gather enough to constitute a quorum if the membership roll hasn’t been updated in 10 or 15 years to account for deceased members, departed members, and other “inactive persons” who are effectively gone.
The Trump Card?
While I’ve never had anyone raise this next concern with me, I can imagine someone reticent to tackle the membership issue asking, “Why not just focus on evangelism and discipleship? Isn’t that really where the church’s focus should lie? Wouldn’t that solve a lot of our membership problems?”
Such a person would be correct, to some degree. For example, too often we assume people are saved simply because they’ve grown up attending and participating in the life of the church, but we’ve never explicitly called them to repentance nor witnessed a profession of faith. Intentional evangelism can help guard and clarify the spiritual integrity of the body. Or if we’re really teaching new converts “all things whatsoever” Jesus has commanded (discipleship), won’t they naturally figure out that membership matters? The “keep the main thing the main thing” trump card has much about it to commend.
However, an emphasis on the foundational nature of church membership and discipline clarifies what people are being invited to in Christ and what following Him will require.
When someone is converted, what’s next? Baptism. But what does baptism denote? It’s following Jesus in obedience. It symbolizes our spiritual death and rebirth. But baptism itself is the proper and most basic profession of faith that we offer. Christian converts in Muslim-majority countries sure understand this. They know that saying they’re a Christian isn’t the most profound break with their Muslim past; baptism is. In this way, baptism initiates people into a community of faith. Membership is the way the Bible describes the new loyalties that have formed. People go from being a mere attendee of an organization or event to a member of a body. The difference matters.
So on the one hand, membership clarifies the fact that following Jesus is aligning us with His body on earth as an essential aspect of what it means to follow and serve Him. On the other hand, a healthy emphasis on church discipline flows from the very notion of discipleship. The semantic connections are obvious: disciple, discipleship, discipline. But our membership within the body is what provides the basis for mutual accountability within the body—both to be formed and nurtured proactively in the faith, and to be corrected and admonished in response to ways in which we may err.
So I’m more than happy to grant that evangelism and discipleship are the central tasks of the church in terms of non-worship activity. But keeping membership and discipline as the central themes of the church’s ministry provides a better framework within which evangelism and discipleship can be situated.
What’s an Ethical Situation?
Last week I had a good friend email me and ask what my favorite publications were for pastors discerning the best practices for ethical situations. Though I had a basic hunch about his reasons for asking given his own academic background, I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by “ethical situations.”
My initial thoughts went to David Vandrunen’s Bioethics and the Christian Life, or the works of Gilbert Meilaender, and maybe three or four other titles from authors who write on the intersection of Christian theology and various moral-ethical concerns.
But the phrase “ethical situations” does strike me as an interesting conversation starter about what we really imagine pastoral work to be. For instance, if we take “ethics” to refer to issues of right and wrong, good and bad, and even ideals (as Leroy Forlines would have done), this yields quite a few daily situations which pastors face—both in their own moral choices, as well as how they counsel members.
I thought it might be useful to provide a list of some of these kinds of situations (in no particular order) to illuminate the landscape for non-pastoral readers:
1-Should I perform the wedding of this couple who I think are ill-advised to marry?
2-Should we collect and facilitate the offering a member gave and designated for a special fund who refuses to tithe more generally to the treasury?
3-Should we permit children who we don’t believe to be truly converted yet to partake of the Lord’s Supper?
4-Should I reassure a couple ending an ectopic pregnancy that their choice doesn’t morally constitute murder?
5-Should I support a hurting spouse’s decision to apply extraordinary medical interventions to their spouse, despite the low probability of recovery?
6-Should I oversee the hiring process of a new staff member when I know I plan to retire or resign as soon as they would begin their employment?
7-Should I notify the entire congregation of being away to interview for another ministry position?
8-Should my church be expected to reimburse me for ministry mileage incurred on a trip to speak at another church?
9-Should I recommend the transfer member to join my church if they left their former congregation without notifying their pastor or under generally ill-advised circumstances?
These are just a few of a hundred situations that pastors face regularly. Certainly some of them are clearer than others, but the point is that they all require moral discernment. Shepherding people is profoundly moral, ethical work. Indeed, if we take Scripture seriously, we find that all occupations are implicated in a range of moral concerns that are often overlooked.
Aside from prayer and study, pastors prepare well for these situations by surrounding themselves with wise pastoral practitioners outside their church. An unbiased third party can often see situations with greater clarity than those deeply immersed in a complex situation. Pastors also serve the congregation well by equipping members for their own growth in moral discernment. I’ve often reaped the benefits of older, wiser Christians speaking into difficult situations, enabling me to make better decisions. Of course, some church-related decisions have been delegated to others anyway, so the decision-making doesn’t entirely fall on my shoulders anyway.
We all stand in need of moral and ethical discernment to fulfill Christ’s mission with integrity.
Make no mistake: all ministry is moral.
Currently Reading:
James L. Nolan, Jr., Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age
Quote of the Week:
For all his brilliance, [Friedrich] Schleiermacher did little to mitigate elite cultural contempt for Christianity or preserve Christian orthodoxy for future generations. He conceded too much and failed to see that Christianity is despised not simply because of its doctrinal content but because of its moral teachings…We cannot pick and choose moral priorities. The Christian gospel is first and foremost a judgment on this world, not a selective affirmation of it in the service of winning friends and influencing people. Christians should not expect to be warmly embraced by the world, nor even to be tolerated…Christians who act despicably should not complain when they find themselves despised. But Jesus’s warning surely reminds us that we do not need to take our cultural despisers seriously; still less ought we to side with them against those who actually share our faith. (Carl Trueman)