Taking Membership Seriously

Membership is not all that important at our church, about a third of respondents to a recent Leadership Weekly poll said. While 38 percent said attenders were frequently urged to join, and 34 percent said the membership appeal was occasionally given, the remainder said their church placed little or no emphasis on membership. That trend, according to many experts, is a mistake, the costly result of a casual, come-as-you-are attitude.

Rather than emphasizing their casual atmosphere, Ken Sande of Peacemaker Ministries says it’s time for churches to raise the bar. Emphasizing membership can protect the church from the growing threat of lawsuits.

Why do many churches no longer emphasize membership?

First, we’ve given in to our culture’s antagonism toward commitment. Like parents who are afraid to discipline their teenagers, church leaders are afraid they will be unpopular for emphasizing commitment and accountability.

Second, there is a concern that if we create a barrier at the front door to the church, not as many people will enter, and the pressure leaders feel to grow the church is enormous today.

But what we don’t realize is that by not emphasizing membership, we may keep the front door wide open, but we also have a wide open back door, and people leave without being noticed.

Numerical growth is really not helped by deemphasizing membership.

How can lax membership be perilous?

I counseled a church where an attender used his church relationships to persuade people to invest over $2 million with him. The money was never returned to the investors. The church leadership struggled to respond because the man was not a member. If they said something publicly and warned the congregation about his actions, they risked a lawsuit for slander and defamation of character.

The leaders finally asked the man to leave but said nothing to the congregation. As a result he scammed people in the church for another year. When victimized members discovered the leaders knew about the man’s actions but failed to publicly warn them, they in turn threatened to sue the church for failing to protect them.

Several courts have ruled that churches may not discipline people who have not specifically consented to discipline. In this case church leaders could not publicly warn the congregation about the man’s actions without threat of a lawsuit, because he was not a member and had not consented to live by any church standards. The leaders were prevented from fulfilling one of their most important biblical tasks—protecting the flock. Read more.