For some reason, church membership is a tough topic. Reading the New Testament, it seems the early church understood that when you become a Christian, you are a ?member ? of the church. Just as when a child is born he becomes part of the family, when a person is ?reborn ? they become part of the church family. Just as there are roles, rights, and responsibilities to fulfill within a family, the early church seemed to understand the same for being a Christian.
Today we seem to believe that being a member of a church is like being a member of any other organization, and so we come and go as we please, withhold our support when we are angry, and pick and choose how and when we participate and even submit to the authority of the leaders. Maybe it ?s because we have a lot of choices among churches or because it ?s so easy to place, transfer, or quit membership. Whatever the reason, we seem to forget that being a member of the church is more like being a member of a body or a family. We recognize the tragedy of broken families, and we are disgusted by the thought of a dismembered body, but we don ?t always place such importance on the connections we have as the body of Christ.
Even though ?membership ? isn ?t a requirement for being a Christian, we must recognize the connectedness we have to each other because of our own relationships with Christ. Paul writes about this in Ephesians 2:19-22: ?You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. ? The church is not a loose association by simple choice; we are connected to each other because we are members of the body of Christ. Let ?s continue to work together as he builds us into that holy dwelling.
When we repented and were baptized by Jesus Christ into the Body of Christ, that is, His church, we by default are members. But just like our body, if we don’t use a certain appendage, or if we lean on too hard, or even if we ignore it, it will fall asleep, leaving us with a “tingling” sensation when we try to revive it so that we may have full equipment again. You know the feeling, when you are trying to figure out if it tickles or if it hurts, whether you should laugh or whether you should cry, so you just shake the appendage around with that weird look on your fact, wondering how long it will be until that “feeling” (whatever it is!) leaves you and you are back to normal. Normal? Is that the right word for it 🙂 I also believe that when we use an appendage, even though we don’t need too, it is called “exercise,” and it makes us stronger, and this ables us to…you guessed it…to ENDURE TO THE END! Thank you Jesus!