Church Membership - What's It All About?

People are sometimes surprised and not a little baffled when I try to explain how our church - a Baptist church - works. There is no hierarchy, or central governing body to dictate how we must function, and some wonder how on earth we decide what to do!

The way it works is like this: every Baptist church is competent under God to organise itself and arrange its own affairs. This is an important part of our identity, we believe that the local church is the gathering together of believers in a local area who have committed themselves to following Jesus (as evidenced in their baptism) and to one another: living, worshipping and witnessing together for him. No-one can tell us what to do except God himself, by the Holy Spirit!

However, this way of working carries with it real responsibility. In order to conduct our affairs in the way God directs, we need to come together, to pray and discern God’s will. That's why we need the church meeting. This is not some great mystery, for God delights to make himself and his plans known to us as we seek him. Yet it is quite different from us merely applying our human answers to the matters that come before us. The church meeting is not an exercise in democracy, but an exercise of theocracy – the rule of God. So it is vital that everyone takes part, not so that we are truly democratic, but so that together (just like the first Christians) we may pray and discover God's leading for us.

I wonder how Paul felt when he went to the church meeting described in Acts 15. I'm sure that he must have felt quite discouraged as one after another, people stood to challenge the work he was doing in preaching the gospel to those who were not Jews (which was a very radical thing, remember). There was certainly a variety of opinion expressed, yet the interesting thing is that another factor was clearly at work. Despite apparently irreconcilable differences amongst the believers, by the end of the meeting it was quite possible to reach a way forward, and a final decision was made. Note those words in verse 28: `it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us'. The goal of every church meeting, the outcome of every decision should be that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and therefore it seems good to us too.

Our Church Annual General Meeting is at 7.45pm on Thursday 19th April and all church members are expected to attend! There may be valid reasons why coming would be difficult, but it is our great privilege and responsibility to do all we can to be there!

However, I know that quite a number of our folk are not members, and some of you are already playing a very full part in the life of our church. Have you ever considered becoming a member? Of course there is more to it than simply being able to come to church meetings, but we should not underestimate the importance of this. I have copies of the leaflet Church Membership - What's It All About? or if you would like to talk over the possibility of church membership (or baptism, or anything else for that matter!) please ask. I'll be more than happy to help.