In the last post, I answered the question, What Is the Local Church? That brings us to the next question: what is church membership?

Answer: It’s a declaration of citizenship in Christ’s kingdom. It’s a passport. It’s an announcement made in the pressroom of Christ’s kingdom. It’s the declaration that a professing individual is an official, licensed, card-carrying, bona fide Jesus representative.

More concretely, church membership is a formal relationship between a local church and a Christian characterized by the church’s affirmation and oversight of a Christian’s discipleship and the Christian’s submission to living out his or her discipleship in the care of the church.

Notice that several elements are present:

• a church body formally affirms an individual’s profession of faith and baptism as credible; 
• it promises to give oversight to that individual’s discipleship; 
• the individual formally submits his or her discipleship to the service and authority of this body and its leaders.

The church body says to the individual, “We recognize your profession of faith, baptism, and discipleship to Christ as valid. Therefore, we publicly affirm and acknowledge you before the nations as belonging to Christ, and we extend the oversight of our fellowship.” Principally, the individual says to the church body, “Insofar as I recognize you as a faithful, gospel-declaring church, I submit my presence and my discipleship to your love and oversight.”

The standards for church membership should be no higher or lower than the standards for being a Christian, with one exception. A Christian is someone who has repented and believed, and that’s who churches should affirm as members. The only additional requirement is baptism. Church members must be baptized, a pattern that is uniform in the New Testament. Peter said to the crowds in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). And Paul, writing the church in Rome, simply assumes that everyone who belongs to the Roman church has been baptized (Rom. 6:1–3). (I'll consider this requirement of baptism further in the next post.)

Church membership, in other words, is not about “additional requirements.” It’s about a church taking specific responsibility for a Christian, and a Christian for a church. It’s about “putting on,” “embodying,” “living out,” and “making concrete” our membership in Christ’s universal body. In some ways, the union which constitutes a local church and its members is like the “I do” of a marriage ceremony, which is why some refer to church membership as a “covenant.”

It’s true that a Christian must choose to join a church, but that does not make it a voluntary organization. Having chosen Christ, a Christian has no choice but to choose to join a church.

This article is excerpted not from Church Membership (pictured above), but Church Discipline: How the Church Protects the name of Jesus (Crossway, 2012). A longer discussion is found in the former book.

The Written Defense of the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj Delivered to the Sari Court of Justice - Sari, Iran December 3, 1993
A born Muslim who decided to follow and serve Jesus and paid the price with his life

"In the Holy Name of God who is our life and existence"

With all humility I express my gratitude to the Judge of all heaven and earth for this precious opportunity, and with brokenness I wait upon the Lord to deliver me from this court trial according to His promises. I also beg the honored members of the court who are present to listen with patience to my defense and with respect for the Name of the Lord.

I am a Christian. As a sinner I believe Jesus has died for my sins on the cross and by His resurrection and victory over death, has made me righteous in the presence of the Holy God. The true God speaks about this fact in His Holy Word, the Gospel (Injil). Jesus means Savior "because He will save His people from their sins." Jesus paid the penalty of our sins by His own blood and gave us a new life so that we can live for the glory of God by the help of the Holy Spirit and be like a dam against corruption, be a channel of blessing and healing, and be protected by the love of God.

In response to this kindness, He has asked me to deny myself and be His fully surrendered follower, and not to fear people even if they kill my body, but rather rely on the creator of life who has crowned me with the crown of mercy and compassion. He is the great protector of His beloved ones as well as their great reward.

I have been charged with "apostasy!" The invisible God who knows our hearts has given assurance to us, as Christians, that we are not among the apostates who will perish but among the believers who will have eternal life. In Islamic Law (Sharia'), an apostate is one who does not believe in God, the prophets or the resurrection of the dead, We Christians believe in all three!

They say "You were a Muslim and you have become a Christian." This is not so. For many years I had no religion. After searching and studying I accepted God's call and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to receive eternal life. People choose their religion but a Christian is chosen by Christ. He says, "You have not chosen me but I have chosen you." Since when did He choose me? He chose me before the foundation of the world. People say, "You were a Muslim from your birth." God says, "You were a Christian from the beginning." He states that He chose us thousands of years ago, even before the creation of the universe, so that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we may be His. A Christian means one who belongs to Jesus Christ.

The eternal God who sees the end from the beginning and who has chosen me to belong to Him, knew from the beginning those whose heart would be drawn to Him and also those who would be willing to sell their faith and eternity for a pot of porridge. I would rather have the whole world against me, but know that the Almighty God is with me. I would rather be called an apostate, but know that I have the approval of the God of glory, because man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. For Him who is God for all eternity nothing is impossible. All power in heaven and on earth is in His hands.

The Almighty God will raise up anyone He chooses and bring down others, accept some and reject others, send some to heaven and other to hell. Now because God does whatever He desires, who can separate us from the love of God? Or who can destroy the relationship between the creator and the creature or defeat a life that is faithful to his Lord? The faithful will be safe and secure under the shadow of the Almighty! Our refuge is the mercy seat of God who is exalted from the beginning. I know in whom I have believed, and He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him to the end until I reach the Kingdom of God, the place where the righteous shine like the sun, but where the evil doers will receive their punishment in the fire of hell.

They tell me, "Return!" But to whom can I return from the arms of my God? Is it right to accept what people are saying instead of obeying the Word of God? It is now 45 years that I am walking with the God of miracles, and His kindness upon me is like a shadow and I owe Him much for His fatherly love and concern.

The love of Jesus has filled all my being and I feel the warmth of His love in every part of my body. God, who is my glory and honor and protector, has put his seal of approval upon me through His unsparing blessings and miracles.

This test of faith is a clear example. The good and kind God reproves and punishes all those whom He loves. He tests them in preparation for heaven. The God of Daniel, who protected his friends in the fiery furnace, has protected me for nine years in prison. And all the bad happenings have turned out for our good and gain, so much so that I am filled to overflowing with joy and thankfulness.

The God of Job has tested my faith and commitment in order to increase my patience and faithfulness. During these nine years he has freed me from all my responsibilities so that under the protection of His blessed Name, I would spend my time in prayer and study of His Word, with a searching heart and with brokenness, and grow in the knowledge of my Lord. I praise the lord for this unique opportunity. God gave me space in my confinement, brought healing in my difficult hardships and His kindness revived me. Oh what great blessings God has in store for those who fear Him!

They object to my evangelizing. But if one finds a blind person who is about to fall in a well and keeps silent then one has sinned. It is our religious duty, as long as the door of God's mercy is open, to convince evil doers to turn from their sinful ways and find refuge in Him in order to be saved from the wrath of the Righteous God and from the coming dreadful punishment.

Jesus Christ says "I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved." "I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the father except through me." "Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Among the prophets of God, only Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and He is our living intercessor for ever.

He is our Savior and He is the (spiritual) Son of God. To know Him means to know eternal life. I, a useless sinner, have believed in this beloved person and all His words and miracles recorded in the Gospel, and I have committed my life into His hands. Life for me is an opportunity to serve Him, and death is a better opportunity to be with Christ. Therefore I am not only satisfied to be in prison for the honor of His Holy Name, but am ready to give my life for the sake of Jesus, my Lord, and enter His kingdom sooner, the place where the elect of God enter everlasting life. But the wicked enter into eternal damnation.

May the shadow of God's kindness and His hand of blessing and healing be and remain upon you for ever. Amen. With Respect,

Your Christian prisoner,
Mehdi Dibaj

"I have always envied those Christians who were martyred for Christ Jesus our Lord. What a privilege to live for our Lord and to die for Him as well. I am filled to overflowing with joy; I am not only satisfied to be in prison. . .but am ready to give my life for the sake of Jesus Christ." - Mehdi Dibaj

Note:

Rev. Mehdi Dibaj who was born into a Muslim family became a Christian 45 Years ago. On December 21, 1993 an Islamic court in the city of Sari condemned him to die. The conviction was based on the charge of apostasy, i.e. that Rev. Dibaj had abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity. Once the news of Rev. Dibaj's death sentence reached the rest of the world, the reaction was one of disbelief followed by prayer and action. One of the persons who worked very hard to overturn Rev. Dibaj's sentence was Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr. Bishop Haik, an Armenian pastor, shared the news of Rev. Dibaj's death sentence as well as other violations of religious freedom of Christians in Iran with the world. Due to the world's reaction, Rev. Dibaj was released on January 16, 1994.

Five months after the release from prison, Rev. Mehdi Dibadj was abducted mysteriously and suffered martyrdom in June, 1994.

(This testimony is also available here in audio form in Dibadj's heart language Farsi http://www.farsinet.com/persecuted/dibaj.html

A local church is a group of Christians who regularly gather in Christ’s name to officially affirm and oversee one another’s membership in Jesus Christ and his kingdom through gospel preaching and gospel ordinances. That's a bit clunky, I know, but notice the five parts of this definition: 

• a group of Christians; 
• a regular gathering;
• a congregation-wide exercise of affirmation and oversight; 
• the purpose of officially representing Christ and his rule on earth—they gather in his name;
• the use of preaching and ordinances for these purposes.

Just as a pastor’s pronouncement transforms a man and a woman into a married couple, so the latter four bullet points transform an ordinary group of Christians spending time together at the park—presto!—into a local church.

The gathering is important for a number of reasons. One is that it’s where we Christians “go public” to declare our highest allegiance. It’s the outpost or embassy, giving a public face to our future nation. And it’s where we bow before our king, only we call it worship. The Pharaohs of the world may oppose us, but God draws his people out of the nations to worship him. He will form his mighty congregation.

The gathering is also where our king enacts his rule through preaching, the ordinances, and discipline. The gospel sermon explains the “law” of our nation. It declares the name of our king and explains the sacrifice he made to become our king. It teaches us of his ways and confronts us in our disobedience. And it assures us of his imminent return.

Through baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the church waves the flag and dons the army uniform of our nation. It makes us visible. To be baptized is to identify ourselves with the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as to identify our union with Christ’s death and resurrection (Matt. 28:19; Rom. 6:3-5). To receive the Lord’s Supper is to proclaim his death and our membership in his body (1 Cor. 11:26-29; cf. Matt. 26:26-29). God wants his people to be known and marked off. He wants a line between the church and the world.

What is the local church? It’s the institution which Jesus created and authorized to pronounce the gospel of the kingdom, to affirm gospel professors, to oversee their discipleship, and to expose impostors. All this means, we don’t “join” churches like we join clubs. We submit to them.

Next post: What Is Church Membership?

This article is excerpted from Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus (Crossway).

Did you catch Al Mohler’s provocative and important article posted today “Is the MegaChurch the New Liberalism”? Mohler does not quite put it this way, but it essentially poses the question of whether there is something endemic to the nature of megachurches in America that tempts them in the direction of theological compromise.

I say “in America” intentionally. Presumably the tendency to theological compromise is not a property of size. Rather, it would seem to be a property of the pragmatism that characterizes so many mega- (and mini!) churches in the United States. Pragmatism, in the context of a church, refers to the philosophy that churches should do “whatever works” to grow. Along these lines, Mohler cites David Wells “massive critique of the doctrinal minimalism, methodological pragmatism, and managerial culture of many megachurches.” 

Of course Mohler knows well enough not to just pin the blame on megachurches; we all deserve it. We are all tempted to change our ministry methods for the sake of reaching a bigger crowd. The problem--to read between Mohler's lines--is that this kind of methodological pragmatism easily migrates into the ethical and theological stances evangelical churches are willing to take. 

Since this question draws so closely to the heart of why 9Marks exists, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a moment, back up, and consider whether there is a larger picture worth seeing. The question I want to think about can be posed like this: is there something endemic not just to megachurches, but to post-1950s-evangelicalism as a whole that, over time, tends to undermine the very doctrinal convictions which makes us evangelicals? More specifically, does our doctrine of the church inevitably tend in a pragmatic direction, such that we will eventually leave the gospel and other core theological convictions unguarded? 

Evangelicals Yesterday: A Theological Consensus

TIGHT GRIP ON THE GOSPEL: Think back to the 1950s and 1960s. An evangelical was someone who believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, the substitutionary death and resurrection of Christ, the necessity of conversion, the call to evangelism, and the importance of engaging the culture. In order to preserve the gospel, evangelicals wanted to keep a tight grip on gospel essentials, and a loose grip on everything else.

LOOSE GRIP ON THE CHURCH: This often included a loose grip on the local church. Evangelicals rightly observed that church structure and programming are secondary, but this led many to treat these as unimportant. They decided the Bible doesn’t say much here anyway, and they began defaulting toward the latest trends of “what works.” Eventually, the Boomers wanted one thing, the Xers another, the Millenneals still another. In the meantime, parachurch ministries began supplanting churches’ work of discipleship and evangelism.

Evangelicals Today: An Ecclesiological Divergence

TRIBALIZATION: But pragmatism and parachurch ministries, for all their good uses, are poor guardians of the gospel. Since those early days, evangelical paths have diverged as churches have become distracted by one thing or another. Call it tribalization, Balkanization, or the passing of the old coalition, many people agree that evangelicalism has divided into a number of separate camps. Their members orbit around different leaders, different conferences, different books, and often different church models.  

PROLIFERATING MODELS: There are the Emergents, the Neo-Reformed, the denominational loyalists (SBC, PCA, Mainliners, etc), the mystical spiritual-formation movement, the Pentecostals and Charismatics, to say nothing of several prominent megachurches which are movements unto themselves. Floating through these camps are an abundance of church models: traditional, house, multi-site, seeker-oriented, purpose-driven, cell, missional, organic, and more.

THEOLOGICAL UNRAVELING: This might not sound dangerous at face value, but in many cases these camps have begun to represent different theological trajectories. Evangelicals find it harder and harder to agree on the truthfulness of Scripture, the nature of the Christ’s atonement, God’s foreknowledge, and the importance of conversion and evangelism. In short, the old theological consensus has been passing away.

A Evangelicals Tomorrow: A Theological Divergence

GOSPEL COMPROMISE? The question that I would like to pose is, did our original evangelical starting point ultimately leave the gospel unguarded? We chose to treat the church with an open hand—pragmatically—in order to help the spread of the gospel. But did this very first step put us at risk of theological compromise? Mohler points toward the example of one pulpit which is promoting a gospel without repentance. But it's not too hard to find other examples.

These issues, as I said, go to the heart of why 9Marks exists. One of our basic convictions is that the local church and its polity present the platinum prongs that hold the diamond of the gospel in place. When one generation of Christians decides to downplay or relativize or pragmatize the local church, they just might find that the next generation no longer values the same gospel.