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Getting Schooled - Church Membership 101 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-05-14 10:00:10
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We have lots of memberships in modern society, to gyms and Costco—and churches.

We have lots of memberships in modern society, to gyms and Costco—and churches. Kaitlyn schools us on church membership and it used to be a much bigger deal.

Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: https://a.co/d/7y7XNLB

It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian: How the Community of God Transforms Lives by Tod Bolsinger: https://a.co/d/0JasiUO

Exploring Ecclesiology by Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger: https://a.co/d/2gVvvsd

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Comments

Kim Valentine

Thank you for this discussion. I came from a denomination where church membership is understood as being part of the church family. Life circumstances have moved us to a large city where we have found a church home. In the process of coming into membership, we’ve discovered many of our new friends are not members of this church. Many of them have attended this church for many years and serve in ministries. I might add that all of these people are Boomers, so it’s not a “young person” thing.

Rick Brewer

Did Peter have a VLM when he baptized 3,000 people or was it a Church?

Kris Saunders

I was excited when I saw the topic of today's episode this morning. I actually have significant church hurt surrounding this topic, but I've appreciated the way Kaitlyn talks about church membership in other episodes. I'm trying not to be discouraged looking for a church I can belong to. My only criticism here is that I wish the episode was longer!

Melinda Ecker

Wonderful…thoughtful…”one size doesn’t fit all…”

Sarah F

In my experience, people I know who have been members of a church, have not just church hopped around dropping/adding a membership on a whim. I know the 2 times my parents have changed membership, they met with the senior pastor upon leaving. They had expressed their concerns with the direction of the church and they were disregarded. My mixed up relationship with church membership was that in my Baptist church, if you got baptized, you became a member. I held off on baptism as well as membership until I was able to untangle the two in my mind.

Joseph Braun
>>174001205

Good question. I suppose it could depend on how many of the 120 at Pentacost you could then consider elders/pastors. With between 12 and 120 elders, you get between ~250 and 25 people per elder. I wonder what ratio the limit would be of having effective discipleship for all of a church? Maybe there's some church history that could shed some light on this, but it would have been interesting if Acts described the structure of the church then more.

Aaron SirLemming

My church group has recently been talking about this exact topic (almost eerily similar, really) because we're going through Philemon. A question we keep coming back to is what would be the modern equivalent of Paul gracefully pressuring Philemon to accept Onesimus back into his family and church. And one thing that's been coming up is how the Evangelical seeker-sensitive style of church has really lowered the bar for welcoming someone into the church, which is kind of good in one sense, but possibly at the cost of really being able to solve problems like this.

Gloria Anne DeWaard

We attended a church for awhile that required no tobacco or alcohol use in order to be a member. So technically, since a member of my family smoked a pipe, we could not join. This seemed a little artificial to us because we knew people who were members that didn't abide by the requirement. I agree that there are beliefs and behavioral standards that should be required of members, but how far can a church go with that?

Laura Harper

I attend a VLM and found this convicting. It makes me want to reconsider our belonging.

Bruce Gaylord

I was attending a church where to be an 'official member' you had to sign a card saying you wouldn't smoke, drink, go to movies or play cards. This was in a college town in the 1970's. I asked the pastor about it, and he just laughed and said it was a relic from the past and they hadn't gotten around to changing it. After they changed all that to 'consistent Christian life', I signed. Another church had pre-tribulation rapture as part of their statement of faith. I couldn't sign that one either. Being a member or not has never affected the way I look at a church or the leaders. The only thing it affected was being able to vote in the church business meetings - thats something I'd suggest addressing in the next one.

Chuck Clevenger

(disclaimer: I've made it only halfway through the podcast. I wanted to throw this comment out there before I forgot it. Forgive me if this was addressed in the latter part of the podcast.) Hasn't Skye said he's a "member" of a home church? What membership "rules" does his home church have? Perhaps he can elaborate in a future Mailbag episode?

David Rogers

Years ago, I was tasked with writing "Why YOU should become a member!" for the church newsletter. I looked at what others had written and realized quickly that there was a lot of verbatim copy-and-paste without attribution when the topic was addressed. I came up with an original idea and summarized what others had said, identifying sources. My article was copy-and-pasted within a couple weeks into other places. I suspect that the pattern has been repeated often. Many leaders don't want to think about why, they just want to have the numbers go up for whatever report.

Kenneth S

I like to explain membership as “clarifying your commitment.” The word membership may not be biblical and is optional, but in order to follow the instructions in the New Testament concerning life together and leadership, there must be clarity. And I love what Kaitlyn referenced from Bonhoeffer that this should be a beautiful reality…or at least aspiration!

Genelle Guay

I forced myself to listen because, as one raised as a 4th generation cult member, my baptism in 8th grade also included signing belief in their 14 doctrinal beliefs and thereby becoming an official "member." Everything about the concept of membership still turns my stomach, though I was freed from the cult 23 years ago. I understand there might be some church leaders and members who don't abuse this. I am skeptical that they are many. Reading Galatians with helo of the Spirit's discerning freed me from my past. The old testament Covenant is fulfilled in Jesus. The extra obligations my childbood church had invented, always telling us to feel superior for following them, is the very false teachings Paul condemns as not Spirit-based. "After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing?" Church membership and other "Christian culture" requirements create false belonging, false superiority, and false exclusion to anyone looking for a church home. "Faith expressing itself in love" - that is your badge of belonging to the body of Christ.

Carlos Torres

I don’t understand the insistence upon making the American conception of membership (and clothing as identity signifiers) be somehow inherently downstream of consumerism. Like… If my kids attend to school, I presumably have obligations to them and they to me that I do not have to other schools because neither I nor my children go there. But that’s not because I’m a consumer.

Genelle Guay
>>174039766

Yes, my SDA baptism was the same. I keep wondering if I should be re-baptized now because my baptism, though spiritually significant to me, was tied by others into a church membership and agreement to 14 doctrines that I mostly now disagree with, including at least one affirming their false prophet Ellen White. It is hard to overcome membership bias with this background. I love my new church but will not become a member, and I feel like the message of membership is that somehow makes me "less than." But I oppose it as an "extra" put on me by people, just as Paul condemned those saying gentile converts needed to be circumcised.

Genelle Guay
>>174633035

I think they are referring to some churches and especially denominations that like to mention their numbers. Formal membership gives them an easier method to keep track of this.

Genelle Guay
>>174004113

I wonder if they polled all Christians how many of us have experienced true church hurt. I know I have! It is not easy to overcome and the fact that any of us do continue to seek fellowship is another testament of Christ's goodness. All of my friends who left the false church we were raised in left all churches - and faith. I don't feel the concept of church membership helps hurt people want to try again - that is for certain!

Matt Hartzell

I wish this conversation would have went on a bit longer and gotten into a little more nuance. My wife and I joined a church. We dove in with deep enthusiasm and passion. I played drums. We started a young married group. We became general small group leaders, and then transitioned our group to a Gospel Community on Mission focused on a local school, one of the only groups at our church to do so. We started a food pantry and an after school club and an annual clean-up day and an annual community carnival. We eventually oversaw the entire local ministry side of the church. My wife started and led a creative arts team. We could not have been more invested, as full members in good standing, and we did this for over 10 years. At the end, our lead pastor went on sabbatical, decided he was burned out, and because our lease was almost up and many leaders were tired, in short order the decision was made to close the church and merge with another, which happened in a matter of months. All the local ministry we had poured our lives into for a decade ended with little input from us. Needless to say, the one-way direction of "church membership" was readily apparent. This happened YEARS ago, and even though we are part of another church, this experience still makes me feel deeply tired and skeptical of church in general but ESPECIALLY church membership. I think a more nuanced discussion is needed here. What if the church is all about Christian Nationalism? What if the leadership is toxic? What if you think the church is great, but then some great sin is revealed? What if it's Mars Hill Seattle? What if the church itself doesn't live up to the agreement it wants you to agree to? What about the church membership document that you need to sign? How should it be written? What's on it? As an example, we are not members at our current church, even though we've been actively involved for years. It's a pretty decent suburban church here in Portland, even though certainly not perfect. The membership document requires us to agree that women cannot be elders. We don't agree, but we also think that (for now) that isn't something to separate over, yet it's in the membership document that we have to sign our name to. This might be the first time I don't feel schooled by Kaitlyn, lol. Church membership is absent in scripture and is RIFE for abuse, misuse and completely turning people into resources out of which to extract the most value. I personally think it's worthless, especially considering that even if people DO agree to a membership agreement, there is nothing preventing them from leaving for another church, so why is this even a thing? Find a church, stay when it's hard, and leave only when it's obscenely wise to do so or your life just takes you in a completely different direction (i.e. "We have to move"). I would definitely vote for a follow-up episode that dives into this some more.

Carlos Torres

Didn’t credit scores start in like 1989?

Daniel Fitzpatrick

Regarding Kaitlyn's comment about wishing communion was wine, the silver lining of remote church during covid was getting to use wine and matzah bread for communion.

Matthew Tiscareno

You want to be careful quoting Peter Enns. He had a messy divorce with Westminster Seminary and then, no longer restrained by that connection, entirely rejected an orthodox view of Scripture. Many who had supported Inspiration & Incarnation within a context of orthodoxy felt betrayed.

Matthew Tiscareno

This was an encouraging episode. I particularly appreciate the point that it is practically impossible to practice healthy church membership in the context of a megachurch. It reminds me to emphasize, as an elder interviewing new members of my congregation, that any discipline would always come in the context of being leaders who know them and love them and are for them. As Kaitlyn argues, it doesn't make sense otherwise.