Membership - Part 1

Why “membership” has lost its meaning

I was talking to the missionaries of Christusgemeinde Peine (a missionary couple in Germany that my church supports) the last time they were here on furlough. Apparently something like 65% of the population in Germany has placed its membership in the State supported religion – Lutheran and Catholic churches. But if you were to walk into a service on a given Sunday, you can expect to see perhaps 3% attending. Reread those numbers because they are astounding. Why do most people call themselves members of the body of Christ and yet have very little interaction with that body? Many reasons could be cited, but the following is the answer from the missionaries themselves:

Randy likes to compare this system with the Jewish system. Here most people are "born" into the church; the choice is made for them. Confirmation is when they say "yes" to that choice. It is difficult for some to make the decision to get out of the church, because of family, job or political pressure.

The reason most people are still members is tradition. If you are a member you can have your baby christened and this is usually a big family affair. If you ask the young people that age why they are going to confirmation, most would say because of the money. They usually get several thousand dollars in gift money from grandparents, godparents and other relatives. If you were confirmed and stay in the church, then you can have a church wedding. And of course the circle closes with a religious funeral. In some places the local cemetery is owned by the church and if you aren't a member, you must be buried elsewhere. Some people see their church membership as a kind of insurance: "If there really is a God, then I'll be covered."

We might look at that and say, “How silly. Membership in a church has lost its meaning. They are no more members of a church than the building is the church.” And such a statement would be true. But as I look around, is membership in our churches much different? Not really. Many Christians are “born into it.” Many want to be married in a church despite having little to no affiliation with that church. Many may attend on Sunday to put their time in but are not truly invested in the church. And of course there is the fire insurance aspect of saying “I belong to the church, therefore I won’t go to hell.”

As shallow as those reasons are, I sort of expect them from worldly people. And yet, church people also focus on membership. It seems, especially in the Church of Christ, that many churchgoers place a high priority on membership. They worry about whether a person has placed or transferred his or her membership with the church. Once they figure out the numbers, they can then pass them on to the Christian Standard or other news outlet perhaps as a way to measure and compare themselves. Then, of course, there are things only members are allowed to do as if coming forward and speaking a few rote words miraculously enables and empowers you to serve in certain ways.

As a result, membership has lost its meaning. Membership has become a matter of numbers and not belonging to something bigger than ourselves. If I may paraphrase Matthew 23:15 – “You try and try to get people to place their membership in your church and then once you do, you make them as much mediocre pew sitters as you are.”

What will follow in my next post in a week will be a way of approaching membership that reminds us all of what it is truly about, and perhaps return that sense of belonging that has been lost.