Many Christians have received their idea of the church from the world and from secular culture, rather than from Scripture. Faulty concepts of church-life abound. Three popular ones are:

1. The lecture hall model. Church is an information station—the Christian life, like everything else, is a skill that you can get if you have enough know-how, so you go to the place that gives you the best quality information.
2. The group therapy model. Church is a support group for hurting and broken people. People need some encouragement and upliftment for their personal spirituality, and in a group we get to relate, connect, and “be real.”
3. The marketing model. Church is a supplier of a variety of services, from which the attenders/consumers get to pick and choose. Encouragement, information, childcare, entertainment, crisis counselling, inspiration: these are the fast food products available at your local franchise.

What do all these faulty models have in common? They have been influenced by secular culture and its values. Profound individualism, consumerism, privatism, and therapeutism are the presuppositions of these concepts. Like every other public organization in society, people use the church for selfish benefit, and perhaps give it something in return, usually money or attention.

By contrast, the biblical model of the church is that it is:

• the Body of Christ with many members (1 Cor 12:12; Eph 1:22–23; Rom 12:5)
• the Temple of the Spirit with many stones (1 Cor 3:16; 1 Pet 2:5)
• the Family of God with many brothers and sisters (Gal 6:10, every use of “brethren”)
• the Flock of God with sheep and a shepherd (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet 5:2)
• the Vine of Christ with many branches (John 15:1–10)

These images speak of something very different. They imply mutual interdependence (you need the local church, and the local church needs you). Your presence or absence is felt. Your spiritual health is dependent on being within a healthy local church. They also imply selfless service of others, while receiving service from others. They further imply a corporate relationship with Christ, not merely multiple private relationships with Christ.

One way that a church emphasizes this mutuality, service, and corporate identity is through a church covenant entered into when becoming a member. Church membership is really a public covenant that accompanies valid baptism.

But why must we formalize our commitment in a public covenant? Can’t we just be sincere about our commitments in our hearts? We can answer in three ways:

First, formalized and public commitments are real and publicly verifiable commitments. A couple might live together in fornication and protest that they are “married in spirit”—committed to one another with or without a formal marriage ceremony or licence. However, until they make a public covenant to be true to one another, they are not considered married.

Covenanting is a very serious and important concept, mostly lost on the world today. The Bible encourages us to take our vows seriously (Eccl 5:4–6; Ps 15:4). At the same time, it is a joy to come under a binding commitment when empowered by grace (Ps 22:25–26).

Second, baptism and membership covenanting enables mutual accountability and commitment. We live in a time of religious independence and individualism. Many want a “private” religion without accountability. People shop for spiritual experiences like they shop for other goods, bouncing from church to church, neglecting the ordinances, using para-church organizations for personal growth and edification, but disconnected from a church community with its body life, its accountability to leadership, and its mutual submission.

Third, baptism and membership covenanting make public and explicit what is personal and unseen. In covenanting you are making a promise that you can be held to. This is important for our sanctification, given our inclinations towards self-deceit, spiritual apathy, and privatized religion. Scriptures like Galatians 6:1–4 and James 5:16, 19–20 only make sense in an environment of mutual accountability.

Baptism and church membership are ways that believers publicly identify themselves as Christians and publicly identify themselves with a local church. The church, in turn, can then affirm and receive that profession and commitment (Matt 16:18–19; 18:15–19)

When seen in this light, we can see that church membership is not a mere administrative detail. It is a means to achieving proper New Testament church life and achieving a pure church membership. It counters the faulty, consumeristic models of church so popular today and replaces them with the biblical idea of mutual covenanting.

Author

David de Bruyn

Pastor New Covenant Baptist Church, Johannesburg, South Africa

David de Bruyn was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he now pastors New Covenant Baptist Church and resides with his wife and three children. He is a graduate of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Minnesota and the University of South Africa (D.Th.). David hosts a weekly radio program that is heard throughout much of central South Africa, serves as a frequent conference speaker, and is a lecturer at Shepherds Seminary Africa.