Recently, I heard a PCA pastor say that he wanted to train and teach his folks in such a way that should they ever remove from his church and town they wouldn't even think of joining any other kind of church.  When I heard that my eyebrows went up and my head tilted ever so slightly rightward.  Huh?

Then this morning I read this application question in John S. Hammett's Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches:

Could you see yourself becoming a member of a church of a different denomination?  Why or why not?

Writing a Baptist ecclesiology, Hammett most likely thinks Baptist churches conform to the teaching of Scripture more faithfully than others--at least on the point of baptism, congregationalism, and regenerate membership.

But I wonder what you brothers think.  Could you see yourself becoming a member of a church of a different denomination?  Why or why not?  What would be the deal breaker for you?

You guys are seriously testing my knowledge of Robert's rules of order!  Hence both of my post titles alluding to Robert's rules begin, "Point of clarification."  Come to think of it, who was Robert and why did he get to set the rules? 

Greg, a question about your five areas of voting.  Would you all take some kind of congregational vote on missionaries?  I'm thinking something loosely premised on Acts 13?  Thoughts?

Jonathan, regrading your question...

It seems like the only way around the problem is straight through it. You could do a mass membership meeting (like some kind of Moonie wedding), but I think it's better to take people in one by one, even if that is time consuming. If you take in a bunch of people without examinging their profession of faith, you've really short-circuited the whole point of meaningful membership. If you bite the bullet now and do this well, it will surely bear a lot of fruit down the road.

Given the constraints described in the email, I'd probably use some time on Sunday morning to teach about membership and explain the process. It's not wise to make a drastic move before you've taught on it well.

The pastor of a 500+ attending church has written asking about how to introduce the practice of membership to his church. They planted 13 years ago and have never had any formal practice of membership. But he has since become convinced of the necessity of membership. He writes,

How do we initiate a membership program when we already have 500+ people who call our church their home?  We've talked about classes on Wednesday night, early Sunday morning (we don't have formal adult Sunday School), or even teaching a four-five week Sunday morning series about membership - but how do we then move forward with actually making people members?  Are we to interview 500+ people?  Do we 'grandfather' in the whole group, and if so, what would be the criteria and procedure?  Do we have a 'mass' membership service to include all those interested?  And if we were to do that, how are we going to monitor whether this mass of people are actually ready for membership?

Thoughts?
 
 

I can't remember if I read this in 9 Marks or if I've heard Mark say it 99 times, but I seem to recall that Mark's assertion is that if you have the first mark, expositional preaching, in place then you're going to have a greater opportunity for seeing the others take shape over time.  If I'm remembering that correctly, that makes expositional preaching pretty foundational and perhaps "necessary and sufficient" for joining with a body. 

It seems that using the entire list of 9 characteristics as a screen for selecting a church may be to leave off the church reform assumptions that they're written in response to.  Perhaps this is an instance where "beginning with the end in mind" is actually a poor way to start.  Perhaps we should start with looking for evidences of God's grace in a local body, and maybe put a premium on a couple of marks (expositional preaching, sound gospel).  Maybe we labor in love and prayer with the other saints to see the Lord grow the other marks, so that the threshold for joining is significantly lower than 7 of 9 marks or something like that.  Perhaps get the preaching right and the gospel and labor for the rest? 

Here's the other thing I've heard a lot around CHBC.  In the why join a church section of the membership matters class, big emphasis is placed on avoiding a consumer mentality and joining a church as a provider.  There might be a subtle way in which turning the 9 marks into a grid for selecting a church (rather than reforming a church) could feed a consumer mentality and dampen the need to approach every church with a heart to provide.  Our gifts are for the common good, for the edification of the body.  While trying hard to avoid the pride that suggests "we have what this church needs," prospective members should be searching for ways to contribute instead of merely receive.

I hope I'm not flogging a dead horse, but I'm returning to the issue of believers' baptism and church
membership.

In the comments around there have been sentiments that sound something like this: "churches belong to Jesus not to the leaders of the church: therefore if a person belongs to Jesus, they must be allowed to join your local church." (see point 4 below for this) Or "the local church cannot have more requirements for membership than the kingdom of God." (see particularly point 3 below for this)

A friend of mine who was considering ordination in the Church of England, though previously having baptistic convictions, expressed it something like this. "I hate the way that baptist churches exclude faithful Christians from membership just because they have different understanding of baptism. It is just like the Galatian heresy, denying full fellowship to those you understand to be members of the body of Christ."

Let me say a few things to this.

1) It is not Galatian to require something that is required by Scripture. It is Galatian to require something NOT required by Scripture. This therefore begs the question, "Is believers baptism required by Scripture?" If it is (as baptists believe) then baptist churches are not Galatian.

2) The Galatian heresy denied even table fellowship with the uncircumcised. Baptists will have a very high level of fellowship with paedobaptists. (In an hour I'm heading off to an evangelistic talk that we are  putting on with Anglicans, Presbyterians, E-freeians, and baptists.) We'll even eat!

3) As soon as you have said that membership is for those who give credible evidence of salvation, you exclude some believers from membership. You are saying that there must be credible evidence of salvation. Are my children believers? I don't know. They might be - but they are so young that it is hard to tell. If a church wants to be sure that it will not deny membership to any believer, they must be paedobaptists (and paedo-communionists). In fact even paedo-communionists feel required by Scripture to excommunicate people who are being disobedient to Scripture - they are not suggesting that they have finally determined that this person is not a believer at this point. Was the immoral brother of 1 Corinthians 5 a citizen of heaven? We don't know... only time would tell.

4) Baptists have traditionally understood Jesus' headship of the church to imply that a church has no right to recognize baptisms that are not biblical. If Jesus has commanded us to practice believers' baptism (Matt 28:18-20) and the Spirit of Christ inspired the book of Acts that makes it clear that we are to repent and believe and then be baptized, and inspired 1 Corinthians 12 that makes it clear that membership of the body is for those who have been baptized, we do not feel that we have the authority to recognize baptisms that are not commanded by Jesus.

The "unrepentant sin" question is clearly part of the puzzle when welcoming the unbaptised into church membership. A reason why permitting this (even unwitting) disobedience would be more serious than others (e.g. an unwitting denial of the bible's teaching on the millenium) is that baptism itself defines who the church is.

Baptism defines whom we recognise to be members of the visible church, just as Spirit baptism creates the members of the invisible church. (1 Corinthians 12:13). People from both sides of the debate have agreed this. (See, for example, Thomas Shepard's The Church membership of Children)

When I became a convinced credobaptist aged 19, I don't think that I was approaching the subject from a historically baptist viewpoint. I saw that the New Testament commands people to be baptised upon their profession of faith, and that was enough for me. I failed to see the ecclesiological significance of credobaptism: that the church would strive to be a community of belivers only.

There are two relevant implications of the fact that baptism defines church membership.

First, To permit a conscientious paedobaptist into the church is to permit someone to belong to a church who has a very different idea of what a church is. In order to be a church together, do we not at least need to be able to agree what a church is? Is it (1) a covenanted community of believers. Or is it (2) a community that includes believers and their children?

Can we belong to the same church as those who disagree so deeply about what a church is?

Second, if baptism defines church membership it is going to be far easier for a predominantly paedobaptistic congregation to admit a credobaptist to membership (they believe him to be baptised). A credobaptistic congregation is going to have a greater weight on their conscience to admit to church membership one that they understand not to havec been baptised. In order to do this, they would have actually have to deny something that credos and paedos have usually agreed upon: that only the baptised may be admitted as members of the church!

Suddenly the move towards apparent unity requires disagreement on one of the things that we have previsouly been united upon!

A friendly question to ask those who hold to an "open membership" position:

What are some of the potential negative consequences of this position?  Particularly, what will it mean in defining a clear, bright line between the church and the world?

Maybe it simply worth noting that there is a long history, first in England, then in the States, of Baptists addressing the question of whether the unbaptized should be accepted into the membership of Baptist churches.  To put it in a less sterile way, should the church really be split over a difference in baptism?

The most famous account, and one that Mark has lectured on in academic circles, involved the famous tinker from Bedford, John Bunyan. The author of Pilgrim’s Progress defended his practice of allowing the paedo-baptists to join Bedford Baptist Church in Differences about Water Baptism No Bar to Communion (1673). Bunyan offered ten reasons to allow the unbaptized into membership. First, both the baptized and unbaptized are subject to Christ. Second, Eph. 4:1-6 points to one baptism that unifies all believers. Third, all believers share faith in the essentials—life, death, resurrection of Christ. Fourth, a church should not deny communion to someone with whom God has communion. Fifth, a lack of water baptism does not “unchristian” anyone. Seventh, love trumps division. Eighth, churches are wrong to separate over more serious matters than baptism (1 Cor. 3:1-4). Ninth, denying church communion is tantamount to denying the privileges and blessings of salvation. Tenth, it is contemptible to cast off a saint from church communion.

William Kiffin challenged Bunyan in his own day, but a hundred years later another Baptist minister, Abraham Booth, challenged Bunyan’s arguments in A Defense for the Baptists (1778). Not surprisingly, Booth lacked something of Bunyan’s flourish; Booth’s arguments are simple and straightforward. First, the New Testament presents Baptism as a necessary prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper. Second, the necessity of Baptism ought not to be left up to the individual’s conscience (as Bunyan had argued). The church must retain the right to exercise God’s commandment in a matter as clearly prescribed as the subject of baptism. To prioritize an individual’s conscience over biblical teaching threatened the entire dissenting movement of which Booth was a part. This is very interesting. According to Booth, to allow unbaptized persons into the church on the basis of their convictions contrary to the congregation’s teaching threatened the very integrity of the church. His church might as well hang up its separatist credentials and join with the Church of England:

For if it be lawful to dispense with an appointment of God, out of regard to our weaker brethren; we cannot reasonably think it unlawful to practice the appointments of our National Church . . . And if we may safely connive at one human invention; why may not the Church of England make what appointments she pleases? (Defense for the Baptists, Baptist Standard Bearer, 50-51)

What observations can be made based on this discussion? Regarding the first question, Bunyan sought out certain themes in Scripture that seemed to contradict denying membership to a Christian: unity and love being the primary ones. Next, he traded on the emotional weight of these themes and prioritized them above other apparently contradictory ones: obedience [to the command to be baptized] and truth [regarding the necessity of baptism preceding communion]. Booth saw something greater at stake in the discussion than simply whether a few Baptist churches would become mixed. Churches prizing the conscience of the individual above the clear teaching of Scripture threatened leaving their young Baptist roots. This, of course, is eventually what happened to Bunyan’s church. Not during his time, but a few church splits later, Bedford Baptist became Bedford Congregationalist. 

Time to bring this to an end.  I'd still like to discuss in another post trends in America including two   Baptists, Dagg and Dargan, an interesting event in the 1820s where a Congregational and Baptist association sought to become one for the purpose of evangelism in the Northeast, as well as Watts Street Baptist, a church in North Carolina that changed its baptism policy nearly forty years ago.  After that, it will be a good time for me to offer some reflections on the current discussion.

OK, I'm on vacation with my family, but I took print-outs of the Piper/Grudem exchanges on baptism and chruch membership.  9Marks guys, can we weigh in on this?  What would you add to, disagree with, nuance in this argument?

Baptism SHOULD be required for church membership:

1)  Because Jesus clearly commanded baptism and to disobey this command is sin [whether intentional or not].  To continue in such an unbaptized state is unrepentant sin [whether intentional or not].  Thus, no careful paedo-baptist will follow John P's apparent "generosity" about membership.  That is, they will never knowingly admit someone to the Lord's Table that they understand to be unbaptized (even if they took that evangelical Quaker or believing Salvationist to be their brother or sister in Christ).  John P wants us to admit to the Lord's Table those that he and we all agree are not baptized.  John has no doubt that infant baptism is not baptism.  He is solid on that point.  But I think that actually leaves his position unusually open to other difficulties--knowingly admitting the unbaptized to regular communion.  I simply don't want to take the responsibility to so disregard Jesus' commands (not that John P intends to in anyway disregard Jesus' commands).  I especially don't want to do this in what has been an area of relatively unanimous Christian agreement from Jesus til now.  Baptism precedes the Lord's Table.  MUCH more could be said on this, but it probably already has been.

2)  Because according to the New Testament, it is not merely the elders, but the entire membership of the local church that bear responsibility for establishing and patrolling "border & boundary" issues of discipline (Mt. 18; I Cor. 5) and doctrine (Gal. 1; II Tim 4).  I think John P recognizes the importance of unity among such a responsible body, but he understands [I think] the local congregation NOT to be this responsible body, but rather the active followers of the elders--but merely followers.  A congregationalist on the other hand (as Baptists have traditionally been) understands that it is the congregation who must ultimately establish such issues. John P would NOT want such divisions on baptism in the body that he takes to be the final earthly adjudicatory--the elders--and neither would we Baptists.  The difference is, we think that body is the congregation as a whole, led by elders, yes, but only with the necessary and Biblical consent and cooperation of the congregation.  (So, in classic terms, John would be an independent, but not a congregationalist.)

Much more we could say here, but, reader, please keep in mind that this is written by one who loves John Piper, appreciates his ministry (see earlier blog post) and who is planning to have an Anglican Dean and a Presbyterian former Moderator of the General Assembly preach in his Baptist pulpit in the next few months.  There is a great unity in active cooperation, honoring, encouragement and love that is not broken by our lamentable temporary separation over local church membership.

Guys, comments?

In my head when I am thinking about the content of the gospel, I usually have the 6 frames from two ways to live in mind. These cover

1) Creation of man to live under God's loving rule
2) Sin as rebellion against God's rule.
3) Judgment
4) Penal Substitution
5) Resurrection & Enthronement of Christ
6) Response of Repentance & Faith.

Webb touched on only 1/2 out of 6 (he affirms the resurrection) on this score.

If this had been the answer that someone had given during a membership interview I was conducting, it would have sparked at least two major lines of questioning.

1) Why did Jesus have to die?

I would ask various follow up questions until I had heard several things
a) Human beings are sinful
b) God will punish all sin - we all therefore deserve hell.
c) Jesus died, taking the punishment that sinners deserve, so that all who trust in him will not be punished  for their own sin.

2) Will EVERYONE receive the benefits of Jesus' death and resurrection?

Again, I would ask follow up questions until I had heard that salvation is granted only to those who repent and believe.

Unless I heard clear answers in that direction, I would probably encourage someone to go over the gospel through a one on one bible study with a church member before recommending to the elders that we recommend this person to the congregation for membership.

Have you ever thought how long you will stay committed to your church? American society is very transitory. Often people leave their church to move to another part of the country because they’ve accepted a better paying job. They are moving up on the corporate ladder, buying a bigger house, and enjoying life with more disposable income. 

Here’s a novel idea: Why not turn down a job promotion in order to stay committed to your local church? That is, make your church more of a priority than your career. 

Matt Schmucker once said to me (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Maybe a few of us need to be willing to commit our lives to one local church over a lifetime. We need to be willing to sacrifice our lives for the sake of bearing long-term fruit for the kingdom.”

Now you might think I’m just talking about laypeople, but I’m also thinking about pastors here. Researchers say that on average, pastors stay at churches for only 3.5 years. Too many pastors are eager to “move up” to bigger churches with bigger sanctuaries, bigger salaries, more staff, and more ministries. 

There is only so much you can do if you stick around for just a few years. In contrast, when you stay in a local church for a lifetime, you can think, plan, and act with a long-term vision. You can build relationships over the long haul. You can commit to transforming one community for a lifetime. A long-term vision with a long-term commitment can make a tremendous difference.

So what say you? Might you consider staying in your church over the long haul? 

One caveat: Life is complicated. There are lots of normal transitions in life. For example: a high school student graduates and goes to college; a young girl gets married and moves out of her parents’ home; a seminary student graduates and takes his first pastorate; etc. Yet, with all of these exceptions in mind, I still think my point is valid. In general, people make church secondary in their major life decisions when it should be primary. 

(P.S. Matt – you said to quote someone wiser than myself in my first post. How did I do?)