As we begin a new year, one of the things I am thinking about today is church membership. The Elders of our church, with input from our church family, spent one year re-tooling our statements of church membership. When the time came to sign the new membership cards, Linda and I whole-heartedly did so.
Throughout the membership process, I looked at membership statements from various churches. Here is one of my favorite church membership explanations, from Bill Johnson's Bethel Redding Church.
Membership
The Bible uses many pictures to describe Christians as a community: a household (Eph. 2:19), a human body (1 Cor. 12:12-31) and a temple made up of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:4-5, Eph. 2:21). All of these illustrate and mandate our interconnectedness and our need for each other. When a believer joins a particular congregation, he or she is bearing witness to a union that has already happened in the heart.
You don’t need to become a member to thrive and be actively involved at Bethel Church. In fact, many of the Bethel family are not members. But for those who do choose to become members, we believe that there are many joys and benefits in making this commitment.
Our covenant with God and our commitment to one another work to shape our culture and our community. Membership is an outward, formalized sign of the inward, mutual commitment we have made with each other and the Lord. This commitment helps to define not only our role, but also the intention of our heart; it affects our decisions and influences our perspective. This commitment is costly, but the payoff is immense.
As members, we join together for God’s glory and our mutual benefit; we share the responsibilities and rewards of all that God will accomplish through us. In addition, as outlined in our bylaws, membership is an important component in our relationship with the U.S. government and the proper stewardship of the resources God has entrusted to our congregation over the years.
When you become a member, you are joining the church of Bethel Redding, regardless of which campus you attend. The membership process and commitments are the same for all campuses.
