Recovering a Biblical Maintenance of Church Membership

This entry was posted by Doug on Sunday, 26 July, 2009 at

Recovering a Biblical Maintenance of Church Membership
Submitted by Doug Richey
Messenger from Pisgah Baptist, Excelsior Springs, MO
October 30, 2006
Approved by the Messengers of the MBC w/o dissent October 2006

WHEREAS, our 2005 Annual Church Profile reveals that though we have a total of 592,902
members, we run an average of 187,654 people in worship attendance , which includes non-members such as children, guests, and visitors; and

WHEREAS, the continual reporting of inflated membership numbers creates a distorted picture of ministry,
can breed integrity problems, and perpetuates a misunderstanding of the nature and significance
of membership in the local church; and

WHEREAS, a faithful New Testament church that maintains Biblical membership standards will
experience a broader more effective Gospel witness ; and

WHEREAS, the church is described as a family, a flock, a body, and a temple, all of which point to the
importance of mutual love, support, accountability, and interdependency among the saints ; and

WHEREAS, the children of God live under God’s clear command to remain faithful participants in
corporate worship and ministry ; and

WHEREAS, Christ described the unfortunate reality that there are many who lack saving faith
though they profess to possess it , and the Apostle John cautioned that often those who leave us
were never apart of us ; and

WHEREAS, those who lack obedience in this area of corporate worship and ministry, which breeds a life
of sin in other areas, dishonor the name of Jesus Christ and His church; and

WHEREAS, Christ spoke of the loving effort required in recovering sheep that stray ; and

WHEREAS, Scripture marks out a process we are obligated to follow in the removal of those who
prove to be false professors or unrepentant in their disobedience ; and

WHEREAS, we are to conduct our ministry in accordance with God’s wisdom and not man’s ; and

WHEREAS, historically, Baptists have remained committed to this message of Scripture in our
efforts to maintain a regenerate church membership;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the messengers to the 172nd Annual Session of the Missouri
Baptist Convention meeting in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, October 30 – November 1, 2006, call upon our denominational servants, pastors, and church members to seek wisdom and instruction prayerfully from God’s Holy Word regarding this issue; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we encourage open dialogue to arrive at a greater understanding of the
cause, resolution, and future prevention of inflated membership roles; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that we, like Israel who called upon Ezra to be courageous and act , call
upon our pastors to take Biblical action and lead us with integrity back to an obedient posture regarding this issue; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that we call upon God for His grace and mercy in light of our failure as well
as His strength and wisdom as we embark upon this corrective journey.

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Category: Church Membership Quesions & Implications, Implications of Corporate Theology, The Missouri Baptist Convention
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3 Comments to Recovering a Biblical Maintenance of Church Membership

  1. steve rives says:

    July 29th, 2009 at 23:51

    Doug,

    The covenant community is larger than the elect, and the non-elect want to keep it that way! It was this way in Israel too. Within the community there were pretenders, and Paul warns us in 1 Cor 10 that we will repeat the pattern of Israel.

    In America, it is all to easy to bloat the rolls. If we just removed the non-attenders, that would be a start! If we then challenged the non-active, we would see the possible recovery of those who need to get serious about Jesus.

    Thanks for taking this to the convention.

    Steve

  2. admin says:

    July 30th, 2009 at 09:16

    Thanks,it’s been some time since I worked on this resolution, but I posted it here as a result of several requests from pastors looking for a copy. Since the MBC passed this document, I’ve had calls from pastors in several states wanting to pass similar statements in their associations and churches. Thankfully, Tom Ascol was successful in seeing his passed at the SBC.

  3. Steve Rives says:

    July 30th, 2009 at 10:11

    I remember it was our old pastor, Jim Elliff, who wrote about unregenerate church membership in the SBC. I was moved then, and your article puts a resolution to his proposal. I also remember when the SBC under the leadership of Ascol told us to clean our rolls. We did that at our church, and everyone was quite agreeable. In fact, it was an opportunity for us to reach out to people who had long ago left. Unfortunately, we did not recover any we had lost, but it did get us to thinking about the biblical norm for accountability in relationships. Relationship is the bottom-line issue here. For where there are relationships, it is hard to be non-active and anonymous. Where the church is an anonymous collection of loosely related protestants, then we start getting bloated rolls.