Church membership, baptism, and the Supper should ordinarily be kept together because all three do the same work—identifying the citizens of Christ’s kingdom—working together as a thing, an entry sign of the thing, and ongoing sign of the thing.
Baptism must always follow conversion and precede membership and the Supper, since baptism “names” the Christian (Matt. 28:19) while the Supper “names” the church (see 1 Cor. 10:17).
Churches should not receive unbaptized people as members—no “open membership.”
Churches should adopt neither an “open” nor a “closed” position on fencing the Lord’s Table but a “close” position, receiving both their own members and baptized members of other gospel-preaching churches.
Baptism should ordinarily take place in a church and into church membership.
Careful examination and conversation should precede baptism, meaning that “spontaneous baptisms,” which depend heavily on the subjective sense of the participant, are typically unwise, pastorally careless, and a source of false assurance and nominalism.
The biblical practice of church discipline entails removing a person from membership in the church and participation at the Table, though not necessarily attendance at the gathering.
Baptism into membership and the Lord’s Table serves as an imperfect but external sign of assurance in the believer’s life.
The primary location for planting, nurturing, incubating, disciplining the seed of faith in a child’s life begins in the home (with church assisting), with the baton being passed to church (with parents assisting) when the child reaches a natural but culturally-sensitive age of functional independence, meaning, the widespread practice of child baptism is a seedbed of premature assurance and nominalism.
Churches should not take the Lord’s Supper to shut-ins, nor celebrate it at weddings, Bible studies, youth camps, the family dinner table, or other non-gathered-church occasions.
Baptism and the Supper should ordinarily be administered by an elder, not a parent or best friend.
The priesthood of all believers, coupled with the Great Commission, means that every believer possesses the right and authority to baptize and plant a church as a missionary, though such authority should ordinarily be exercised in submission to one’s own church and pastors and meet the qualifications of elder, deacon, or deaconess.
