Membership Does Matter in Christ's Church

Membership Does Matter in Christ’s Church
Why is Membership Important?
Geoffrey R. Kirkland
Christ Fellowship Bible Church

1. Membership Accurately Pictures the Unity of the Body of Christ.
The body of Christ is made up of many members inextricably bound together through the redemptive work of Christ. And just as they make up the universal body of Christ, God has given to each individual spiritual gifts with which they can — and must — obediently employ in the upbuilding of the believers. This takes place in a localized assembly of gathered believers.

2. Membership Willingly Identifies with Others in the Body of Christ.
A believer in Christ should desire to identify with other believers through a covenant of discipline and witness. To identify with Christ and refuse to identify with Christ’s people is contradictory and must be confronted as sinful. A mark of true salvation is that a child of God loves those who are born of God. This includes an eager willingness to associate with those who are also saved by Christ and brought into the family of God.

3. Membership Eagerly Submits to the Leadership of the Body of Christ.
When a Christian eagerly and humbly enters into church membership, he obediently follows Scripture in submitting to the pastors and elders. Every Christian is commanded by Scripture to know their leaders, to respect them, and to obey them. This is impossible to do when one has not committed to a local flock.  Continue at Geoffrey Kirkland

Ten Things I’ve Learned about Pastors in Two Years

Though this blog is four years old, I did not get serious about the pace of my blogging until about two years ago. If you have spent any time at my blog, you know that I devote a lot of my writings to local church matters in general, and to pastors specifically.

The world of the pastor is not unknown to me. I served as a lead pastor in four churches and, when I was a seminary dean, as an interim pastor in eight more churches. I also served as a church consultant for about 20 years before coming to LifeWay.

But it has been at this blog the past two years that I really feel like I know pastors more in breadth and depth than ever before. I hear from them in the comments of the posts. Others read my posts and leave comments at Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Some choose the privacy of direct messages on Twitter. They number in the thousands.

If you read my posts, you know I often like to do numerical lists. I will do so here, but I struggled to stop at ten. Perhaps I will continue the list later. For now, here are ten things I’ve learned about pastors in the past two years.

1. They truly sense God’s call in their lives. It’s not just another job for them; it is, as one pastor told me, “an inescapable reality.”
2. They love their churches and the members. The metaphor of “shepherd” is truly appropriate for these pastors. They care deeply for those they serve.    Continue at Thom Rainer

Fall of the IFB Empire

This morning was a sad moment to find out about the news coming out of First Baptist Church of Hammond, IN, but even sadder to say, it did not take me by surprise. I attended that church when I was attending their college for one year back in the 1990's. Jack Schaap was the most admired man next to Dr. Hyles himself.  I heard him at many youth conferences challenging young people to give their lives to serve Christ in the ministry. Again, the world I grew up in during my adolescence has been resurrected from the past as I witness the demise of the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. The fruit of the IFB movement continually proves to be rotten. For those of my IFB friends that are sure to mourn this terrible news, I am afraid that they will simply chalk it up to an isolated incident that was simply his choice and that he just got tempted in a rare moment of weakness. I will be first to acknowledge, that when I first heard this news, my first reaction was to go to prayer and beg God to protect me from ever sinning in this way and disgracing His name.

 I am the first to fear and tremble when I contemplate this warning in Scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 

What needs to be taken heed as well is what we think we're standing on! The IFB movement is a very ill part of the Body of Christ and those who are committed to it need to wake up and understand that there are deep rooted problems that make stories like this one and the 20/20 piece last year a regular occurrence.  Continue at Reforming Baptist


See Also:

Jack Schaap’s Fall and the Future of the IFB Movement