Membership At Doxa Church
The local church is the hope of the world and is God’s plan for his people, gathered as His family. The church is much more than a group of people with a commonality or a club, but a family that Jesus established to guide, shape and catalyze our Christian lives. “Just as the Bible establishes the government of your nation as your highest authority on earth when it comes to your citizenship in that nation, so the Bible establishes the local church as your highest authority on earth when it comes to your discipleship to Christ and your citizenship in Christ’s present and promised nation.”
Membership in the Bible
“Where is church membership mentioned in the Bible?” That is a great question and should not be passed over too quickly. When most people ask this question, they tend to be looking for the wrong thing. As we consider membership, we don’t just look for a type of club, group or service provider, but something more.... A King who requires the obedience of his people.
The church is rooted in the statement and firmly held belief, that Jesus is Savior and Lord. This means that as we talk about church membership, the Bible may not talk about it as we might expect it to. Instead, membership is shown to us by the way God’s people gathering together under His reign and grace. As we read the Bible, we repeatedly observe a God who is interested in the citizens of His kingdom, not the members of a club or service group. This is why the Bible uses the language of: family, vine, kingdom, etc.
Seeing membership in the New Testament
There is much to consider in terms of seeing church membership throughout the Bible, specifically the New Testament. For our sake, as we briefly consider church membership, we will look at 3.
As the Apostles proclaimed, “the forgiveness of sin” and “Jesus is Lord,” people started following and joining this movement. They called themselves, “ambassadors in chains” and gathered together as the church. Christians and outsiders began to call these people, ‘the church.’ Consider the following:
“Saul began to destroy the church”
“News of this reached the church”
“The church was earnestly praying”
Both Christians and outsiders of the faith used the word ‘church’ to identify whom these people were that were following Jesus, as different from other groups around them. They were identifying these people as members of the church that Jesus had established. Their faith was tied to their membership of Jesus’ church.
Christian leaders in 1 Peter 5:2 are told that there are specific people that are ‘under your care.’ Paul also shows this in Acts 20:28, saying, “keep watch over yourself and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” This shows us that the leaders of the church (elders) know who the members are. They know who their members are because these people had identified themselves as committed members to the church that Jesus established.
Christians are told to follow specific leaders over them and to submit to them (see Hebrews 13:7). The Christians must know which group/church they belong to (are members of), in order to submit to specific leaders who lead that group. To be a member is not only part of our Christian life, helpful for leaders to lead, but also crucial for us to know whom to follow.
All this to be said, “you simply cannot talk about a local church without talking about its members. It’s like trying to talk about a team, a family, a nation, or, yes, even a club without talking about its members.” To be a Christian is to belong to a church.
6 REASONS CHURCH MEMBERSHIP MATTERS
It’s Biblical. Jesus established the local church and all the Apostles did their ministry through it. The Christian life in the New Testament is ‘church life.’ We should view our Christian life in the same way.
It’s how you declare your highest allegiance. Membership to the church is a public testimony (much like baptism) that your highest allegiance belongs to Jesus and His Church.
It’s how we officially represent Jesus. Membership is the church’s affirmation that you are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom and a legit Jesus representative to the world. Membership ‘authorizes’ and ‘validates’ your faith, under the authority that Jesus has established on earth, through the church (elders).
It’s how you serve other Christians. Membership helps you to know which Christians on planet Earth you are specifically responsible to love, serve, warn and encourage. It enables you to fulfill your biblical responsibilities to Christ’s body (for example, see Ephesians 4:11-16, 25-32)
It helps you know who to follow. Membership helps you to know which Christian leaders on planet Earth you are to follow and submit to. It allows you to fulfill your biblical responsibility to them as ‘your’ leaders (see Hebrews 13:7,17)
It helps Christian leaders lead. Membership lets Christian leaders know which Christians on planet Earth they will ‘give an account for’ (1 Peter 5:2). This allows the Christian leaders to know who they are specifically to lead, love, encourage and warn.
Who Gets To be a member?
The simple answer is, any Christian. “That is to say, the standard for church membership should be no higher or lower than the standard for being a Christian, with one exception.” The standards for church membership are: faith, repentance and baptism.
Faith
“Church membership begins when a church affirms a person’s profession of faith.” Just like Jesus did with Peter, we ask the person, ‘who Jesus is.’ And while people cannot always explain the gospel fluently or coherently, in one way or another they must be able to explain its basic concepts. This means that a person must be able to say who Jesus is and explain the gospel in such a way that salvation is clear and understood.
We base this position and understanding off the Scriptures, where we see men like John write:
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world. (1 John 4:1-3)
John encourages us to press into each other’s faith a little, in order to validate the gospel truth within our lives. Two of the ways that we do this at Doxa is first by sharing our ‘God story’ and then by affirming our statement of faith. In doing this, our goal is not to make sure that all of the members of Doxa are professional theologians, but just to ensure that they hold and believe basic Christian doctrine.
Repentance
Biblically, repentance naturally follows faith in Jesus as the mark of a changed life. Becoming a member in Doxa does not require someone to be perfect, but does require that they are demonstrating repentance and agreeing to be held accountable for continuing repentance from their church family. In Mark 1:15, Jesus says, “...Repent and believe the good news.” Jesus’ command to believe is a faith position. His command to repent is the fruit of the faith position that we have, which changes the way we think and live. Repentance literally means, to change the way you think. This change ultimately changes the way that we live towards God and others. A life style of repentance and brokenness (pictured in the Matthews Beatitudes) is a key to a life for Jesus and is evidence of saving faith.
Baptism
There is one thing that we will require of our members beyond salvation, baptism. As we see in the Bible, the first step of obedience in the Christian life, demonstrated numerous times in the New Testament, is baptism. Baptism is how we ‘go public’ with our faith and proclaim to an unbelieving world that we are following Jesus.
The natural question arises however, “does that Bible actually say that you must be baptized before being a member of a church?” The answer is an emphatic ‘no.’ That being said, if a Christian were to refuse baptism, that seems to be an unrepentant posture, as they are unwilling to follow and obey Jesus’ command. This would then disqualify someone from church membership. As Mark Dever has put it, “getting wet is the easiest command Jesus ever gave to follow. It only gets harder from there.”
That being said, while there is a line in the sand, there is also a conversation to be had. There are legit reasons that some people may have, that could allow them to not be baptized as an adult believer, but still be a member of Doxa church. For example, if a person grew up Presbyterian, was baptized as an infant, went through catechism as a pre-teen, holds and can articulate a distinct biblical view through the Presbyterian lens, and is willing (this is key) to submit to the view of baptism held by Doxa church, we would feel comfortable allowing this person to be a member of Doxa without being baptized as a believing adult.
A CONCLUDING THOUGHT ON MEMBERSHIP
You are the beginning of Doxa Church in Madison. We believe that God wants to do something great and movemental through the life and people of Doxa. We want you to be invested, committed and represented in the family of Doxa Church by becoming a member. We will regularly be having membership meetings, where we will ask for you voice in affirming elders, direction for the church and other updates that come along. This is a unique position and invitation to members of Doxa, as this will not be open to the larger Doxa family (non members).
As you consider becoming a member of Doxa church, know these 2 things:
We want you to flourish in your relationship with Jesus, and believe that membership to Jesus’ local church is a big part of this
We want you to be invested, committed and represented in the life of Doxa through this next step of membership
On behalf of the elders and staff of Doxa, we love you, are for you and can’t wait to journey with you as God plants this church!
- Rob Warren & the Doxa Elders