Comments on: Recovering a Biblical Maintenance of Church Membership http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/2009/07/26/recovering-a-biblical-maintenance-of-church-membership/ Biblical Issues. Pastoral Concerns. Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:33:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Steve Rives http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/2009/07/26/recovering-a-biblical-maintenance-of-church-membership/comment-page-1/#comment-11 Steve Rives Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:11:51 +0000 http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/?p=139#comment-11 I remember it was our old pastor, Jim Elliff, who wrote about <a href="http://www.ccwonline.org/sbc.html" rel="nofollow">unregenerate church membership in the SBC</a>. 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. 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.

]]> By: admin http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/2009/07/26/recovering-a-biblical-maintenance-of-church-membership/comment-page-1/#comment-7 admin Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:16:12 +0000 http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/?p=139#comment-7 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. 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.

]]> By: steve rives http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/2009/07/26/recovering-a-biblical-maintenance-of-church-membership/comment-page-1/#comment-5 steve rives Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:51:41 +0000 http://togetherforchrist.com/blog/?p=139#comment-5 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. <a href="http://www.MrRives.com/Gezer" rel="nofollow">Steve</a> 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

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