I was 14 years old when I was baptized in Russellville, Alabama. I was told I would become a member at my baptism, but I never knew why. Looking back, I am grateful that my local church connected baptism with church membership, but I wonder how much more I would’ve grown in my faith if I knew why I was being baptized into the church.
Church Membership & The Great Commission
Most churches today want to obey the Great Commission. Who wouldn’t? Many churches, for instance, recite the Great Commission every Sunday at the end of their service but rarely preach from passages like Matthew 16:12–20 and Matthew 18:15–80. Such passages challenge the church to not separate the Great Commission from Jesus’ commands of church ethics. Jesus commanded his church to observe all that he commanded, and this includes church membership and church discipline.
Jesus commanded his church to observe all that he commanded, and this includes church membership and church discipline.
What is Church Membership?
So, what is church membership? Church membership is an agreement of submission and commitment to pastors and other believers for discipleship to Jesus (Hebrews 13:17; Ephesians 4:15–16). In other words, church membership is a commitment to disciple one another toward Jesus in a particular congregation.
How Does Church Membership Work?
Churches obey the Great Commission through church membership for two primary reasons: to affirm gospel confessors and to affirm gospel confessions.
Jesus gave those who confess his name “the keys of the kingdom” (Matthew 16:19; 18:17). Exercising “the keys” means rendering judgments over the person who confessed the gospel and their gospel confession. When a church exercises “the keys of the kingdom”, they answer two questions: Is this person really with Jesus? Is what this person saying about Jesus correct? Answering these questions and agreeing on the answers is what binding and loosing mean (Matt. 18:19).
In binding, Christians affirm the confessor of Jesus and their confession. Churches can’t make someone a Christian, but the church is Jesus’ primary plan for affirming whether someone is a Christian. In loosing, they release the confessor whose life no longer matches what they confess (Matthew 18:17; 1 Corinthians 5:1–4).
Churches can’t make someone a Christian, but the church is Jesus’ primary plan for affirming whether someone is a Christian.
Why Does This Matter in Missions?
When we make disciples, we are affirming who is a disciple of Jesus and who is not. It also involves affirming what that disciple of Jesus is confessing. It was only upon Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ and the Son of the living God that Jesus said he would build his church (Matthew 16:16–17).
Jesus will not build his church on false confessors and false confessions. We must not separate Jesus’ commission from people’s confession of Jesus. We obey the Great Commission as we render judgments of gospel confessors and confessions. Disciple-making begins with affirming who is a disciple and whether that disciple is confessing true things about Jesus.
Affirming confessors and confessions then leads to baptizing and teaching all of them all that Jesus has commanded. When possible, this should happen in the context of a church. For Jesus, a church was any two or three who gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20). Those gathered also agree about “anything they ask” (Matthew 18:19). What do those gathered people do? Jesus later says that the Great Commission involves baptizing into the Triune name with a promise of his presence (Matthew 28:19–20). The mention of God’s name means that those who are baptized are now marked with God’s name. Church membership is making explicit what is implicit in this marking of God’s people by baptism.
What Does Church Membership Do?
Church membership is merely formalizing what the gospel and the sacraments do. The gospel creates a new people (2 Corinthians 5:17). Baptism marks a people (Matthew 28:19–20). The Lord’s Supper nourishes and calls those same believers to examine themselves (1 Corinthians 11:28). Everything else the church does revolves around the gospel and the sacraments.
Church membership is making explicit what is implicit in the marking of God’s people by baptism.
Membership is implied in baptism because obeying all that Jesus commands includes committing to a church that exercises the keys of the kingdom (Matthew 16:19; Hebrews 13:17). Membership is implied in the Lord’s Supper because those who repent and believe in Jesus partake of the bread as one body (1 Corinthians 10:17). The visible words of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as Augustine called them, make the local church visible.
When considering the whole of the New Testament, discipleship to Jesus looks like being a church member. It will involve more than this, but never less. Church membership is simply the commitment disciples make to Jesus and one another. When we commit to church membership, we commit to the Great Commission because it takes churches to reach the nations.
Salvador Blanco-Perello is the Music Director at Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He is an M.Div. student at Beeson Divinity School.
