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Rick Warren on Radical Membership

Are you unknowingly encouraging your attenders to commit "spiritual adultery"?

Does your church emphasize, encourage, and value membership? In many places the notion of church membership has fallen out of favor. Rick Warren thinks that is a "serious mistake."

Speaking this morning at the Radicalis conference at Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick challenged pastors to rediscover the importance of commitment to a local church through radical membership. "Membership is a word that has been perverted and abused," said Warren. "It's not putting your name on a roll. It's not about knowing the insider lingo. That's not what membership is all about."

Using Scripture to show the importance of commitment to a local congregation, Warren said membership was about being "a member in the Body of Christ." And therefore membership is "organic not organizational."

Warren shot down the notion that membership isn't important as long as people attend the church. "The difference between an attender and a member is the difference between living together and getting married. A lot of people ...

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