What Is Church Membership?

In general, church membership is an official step of commitment to a local church family. It is an intentional declaration of aligning one’s life to a church’s mission, values, beliefs, and vision. A member chooses to prioritize involvement, giving, service, and unity over their own conveniences.

Joining a church is like leaving the stands and joining a sports team so you can go out to the court to start playing the game. It means you’re joining a spiritual family that provides actual spiritual brothers, sisters, parents, and children not by blood or heritage but by the Holy Spirit.

Does the Bible Speak About Membership?

One common argument against the idea of church membership is that the Bible does not say anything specifically about it. While that is true, it’s also true that there are many contemporary ideas and systems that we use and enjoy today that the Bible does not mention (e.g. Annual Meetings, Position Papers, Budgets, By-laws, and so on). This is simply because the “church” operated much differently in the early years of Christianity, as recorded in the New Testament, and did not exist at all in the Old Testament.

However, the Bible does give Christians today many different principles that help guide us in our understanding of what the modern church should be. This includes principles about what we now call “church membership." For example, Paul declared in Ephesians 2:19-22 that Christians are “no longer strangers and aliens, but… fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

This language drives home many facets of church membership, especially the community or fellowship side of it. Paul explains this even further in Romans 12:5 by saying that we are “one body” in Christ and “individually members one of another.” Also, Jesus explains in Mark 3:35 that if we do the will of God, we are his “brother and sister and mother.”

These passages and the many other “one-anothers” in Scripture show us how Jesus’ ministry brings all people from all places together like never before through his shed blood on the cross. Of course, if we were to look at the First Church in the Book of Acts, we would see a template for church membership that far exceeds any of the expectations of even the most committed modern church. Just read the first few chapters of Acts and see the level of commitment they had to their leadership and to each other — even without an official membership role like we have today.

When it comes to church membership what matters most is that there is a spelled-out process for everyone to join and that there are clearly explained and doable expectations for involvement (especially in worship, small groups, giving, and serving), and that there is an agreement of accountability between the leadership and the membership as well as the membership to each other.

The local church is the visible local expression of the universal, invisible Church family. For someone to commit themselves to that family is not only a worthwhile endeavor, but it is also biblical.

While we need Christ alone for our salvation, we need each other to persevere toward the goal God has called us to in the race that is this life.