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Church membership - have we misunderstood what it should mean?

Johnathan Bayes asks what involvement in church life actually means

Apparently 'Goethe once said that he had little time for church history, since it dealt only with the clergy and he could find in it little about ordinary Christians . . . He did not think he could see how faith was lived out concretely'.1

I want to air some thoughts on the role of those whom Goethe describes as 'ordinary Christians'.

I am not suggesting that those who are called to full-time ministry are extraordinary Christians. Nevertheless, Goethe does hint at a difference of function which I believe is of crucial importance. My question is this: what is the function to which those church members are called who are not ordained into the ministry? This will also lead on to another question: what is the function of those who are ordained into the ministry towards those who are not?

You see, I am sometimes worried that our expectations of what is involved in church membership are completely wrong. There is a widespread view that the ideal church member will be involved in serving the Lord by using his or her gifts within the life of the local congregation. The concept of 'every member ministry' is taken to mean that every member will play an active part within the organised activities of the local church.

But is this correct? Are we right to think that church members who do not get so involved in church work are actually less committed to the Lord? Are those who devote large amounts of time to church activities really more zealous in the things of Christ? Or does God gift his people for a different purpose?

Theologians have often identified three distinguishing marks of the church: (1) the pure preaching of God's Word, (2) the use of the sacraments, and (3) the exercise of discipline. However, I like the way in which Heinrich Heppe words the third mark. He speaks of 'the serious and zealous practice of disciplined Christian life'.2

Put like that, it seems much larger and more positive. The exercise of discipline sounds like an occasional policy for correction when needed. The 'serious and zealous practice of disciplined Christian life' sounds like a permanent vision for a life of constant, ongoing discipleship, and makes it the personal and honourable responsibility of every Christian.

So what form does the serious and zealous practice of disciplined Christian life take? Or, to refer again to Goethe's statement, how is the faith to be lived out concretely? Our instinct, when we hear about 'discipleship', is often to start thinking about Christian activities, whether involvement in church life, or specifically 'religious' service, like witnessing. But is that what church membership is all about? Let me suggest, by reference to two doctrines which were rediscovered at the Reformation, that such a view of the function of church membership needs to be reconsidered.

The first doctrine is the priesthood of all believers. This is sometimes understood as meaning only that 'all Christians have access to God's throne in prayer'.3 However, it seems to me that there is far more to it than that. It has been pointed out that there are two uses of the concept of priesthood in the New Testament - that of Christ, and that of the whole church, and the latter should be understood in the light of the former. One of the functions of priesthood exemplified by our Lord was to present God to the world. We can therefore conclude that part of the priesthood of all believers is that 'we are all called to live out the incarnation in the world now, breaking down the artificial barrier between the sacred and the secular'.4

The second Reformation doctrine is vocation. Luther's interpretation of the word 'calling' in 1 Corinthians 7.20 has been described as a 'breakthrough'.5 Prior to the Reformation, the idea of 'vocation' was restricted to the 'religious life' of the monk or the nun. Luther redefined it in terms of a person's occupation and taught that that is the place where the believer must serve God. This 'inevitably gave everyday worldly activity a religious significance'.6 Calvin gave to Luther's new insight an even larger meaning, because he recognised that the calling is to every aspect of life as it is given to us in the providence of God, and not to our job alone. It includes study, parenthood, political party membership, participation in clubs and societies - in fact, everything in which daily living consists.

So these two doctrines suggest that the main sphere in which the 'ordinary Christian' is to serve God is in the everyday routine in whatever our given human circumstances make inevitable. The key text for defining the function of church membership is 1 Corinthians 10.31: 'Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.'

This means that we must think again if ever we see involvement in the internal workings of the gathered congregation as the essence of Christian commitment. We need to catch the great vision of our purpose as members of Christ's church to live to God's glory in the world. The distinctiveness of Christian involvement is just that we do all life's ordinary things as Christians, with power from the Holy Spirit and a motivation inspired by Christ.

What does this imply for the organised life of the Christian community? It means that we ought not to expect 'ordinary Christians' to be involved in church activities. That is not their vocation. The church meets to hear the Word, church members share in mutual care, so that they are equipped for their Christian ministry in the world. That seems to be the pattern exemplified in the New Testament epistles, where application is constantly made to real-life situations, and exhortations to participation in specifically religious activities are virtually non-existent.

Church leaders often express frustration that all the work of the church lands on the faithful few. Perhaps this is actually a symptom of the fact that we try to do too much as local churches. Christian people need the time to devote to their daily calling. It is unreasonable and wrong to expect more of them than that.

I close with a quotation which sums it up beautifully: 'People ought not to think that the parish bazaar or the young men's guild are the primary obligations of church membership . . . The primary duty of every church member is to be doing his job in the world well, for the glory of God.'7

References:
1. Cited by H. Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith, Vol. 3 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1982).
2. H. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1950), p.669.
3. W. Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Leicester: IVP, 1994), p.933, n.56.

4. A. Marriage, The people of God: a royal priesthood (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1995), p.167f.

5. D. K. McKim, 'The call in the Re-formed tradition', pp.335-343 of D.K. McKim (ed), Major themes in the Reformed tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p.339.

6. Ibid., p.340.
7. F.R. Barry, The relevance of the church, (London: Nisbet, 1935), p.193.
Jonathan Bayes