This is an article that I wrote for the May 2017 newletter for our church Oakland Evangelical Free Church to encourage attenders to place their official membership.
First, membership in the local church is the assumed natural position of all believers in Jesus in the New Testament church. Paul tells us that when we believe in Jesus we are baptized by the Spirit into His body, meaning the church in the universal sense of the collection of all Christians through time, but in reality it also meant you became part of the local gathering of Christians. A lone ranger Christian is apart from a local church is simply not seen or envisioned in the New Testament, and as the following reasons will make clear, Christians are not made to grow and mature in their relationship with the Lord without a local church.
Second then, Christians need a commitment to and from a local church for church discipline and personal accountability to function properly. Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5 lay out some principles for how we can challenge sin in the lives of other Christians and how we should expect the local church to challenge sin in our lives. As a member of a local church we should love and trust one another enough to allow ourselves to be challenged and to be challenged in areas where we are sinning or where we see sin in the lives of other people. Sin hurts and having loving people who can challenge and walk with us through the process of repentance and restoration is a key component in becoming more like Christ.
Third, God gives people the gift of leadership, but for godly leadership to operate, we need to submit to it and if we are gifted in leadership we need to make ourselves available to use our gifts. Christ is the head of the church (Col. 1:18), but he established under shepherds to whom we are supposed to submit (Hebrews 13:17, 1 These. 5:12-13, 1 Tim. 5:17). One of the ways we submit to Jesus then is to submit to the leadership he has established. Leaders are giving the role to shepherd and guard the flock (Acts 20:28-29), but to do this they have to know who the flock is, and that requires that they have committed to a defined group of people and that those people have committed to that body as well.
The Holy Spirit gives certain people leadership gifts (1 Tim. 3:1, Ephesians 4:11-12), and to use those gifts fully you have to be in a position of trust in the lives of others. If you are given leadership gifts, then your gifts and character need to be affirmed by the body so that they can trust that you are indeed gifted and submitted to Christ yourself. Even if you do not have leadership gifts or calling, you are still called to help affirm, support leaders and to hold them accountable.
The fourth reason you need to be a member is for your own personal growth and for the growth of the church. The three major passages on spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:13-16, Romans 12:3-8, 1 Cor. 12:12-29) all speak about using our gifts in the context of the church and for the good of the church. When we use minister together we learn to lead, submit, create, and help others while getting the benefits of their gifts in our lives. Together we love each other better and also multiply our efforts to reach out to the world.
Finally, Jesus tells His disciples that their love for one another is a way of showing the world what He is like (John 13:35). In a local body of believers we learn to live sacrificial and loving lives. The church is first and for most a family and not just a social organization. In fact, Paul reminds us that if we say we love Jesus then we should love those in the church. The fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23 are expressed primarily with people who are close to you, and in the church we commit to caring for other imperfect people and in the process we learn to love like Jesus loves us.
So come and join us and help us show the world what Jesus' love really looks like.
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