Grace Baptist Church

Mark Dever

A member’s regular, tolerated nonattendance begins to raise further questions.  What kind of leadership must a church have to allow such a misrepresentation to arise and flourish?  What expectations are being communicated to those who are joining?  What discipline is practiced, if any?  In fact, tolerated noninvolvement among members may even call into question the kind of evangelism being done and the church’s understanding of conversion, even of the gospel itself.  Allowing such nonattending members to retain their membership would seem to be such blatant disobedience to Scripture, and such a brazen disregard of the scriptural health of those concerned, that it would even call into question the teaching that brought about such an unhealthy tolerance in the body.
- Mark Dever, “Regaining Meaningful Church Membership” in Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches, edited by Thomas White, Jason G. Duesing, and Malcolm B. Yarnell III (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008), 46.

If the church is a building, then we must be bricks in it; if the church is a body, then we are its members; if the church is the household of faith, then we are part of that household.  Sheep are in a flock, and branches on a vine.  Biblically, if we are Christians we must be members of a church.  This membership is not simply the record of a statement we once made or of affection toward a familiar place.  It must be a reflection of a living commitment or it is worthless.

Worse than being worthless, it is dangerous.  Uninvolved members confuse both real members and non-Christians about what it means to be a Christian.  We “active” members do the voluntarily “inactive” members no service when we allow them to remain members of the church.  Membership is the church’s corporate endorsement of a person’s salvation.  Yet how can a congregation honestly testify that someone invisible to it is faithfully running the race?
 - Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 162-63.

“The idea that membership in a local church should only require a profession of faith in Christ is an idea that is both common and destructive to the life and witness of the church. Historically, Baptists have realized that any profession of faith should be tried and deemed credible. After all, a saving profession of faith includes repentance. A Christian life will be revealed not only by participation in baptism and the Lord’s Supper but also by regular attendance at the congregation’s gatherings, and a submission to the discipline of the congregation. This includes regular praying for the congregation and tithing. When congregations do not give attention to lifestyles of repentance, nominal Christianity quickly comes to characterize the church to the world, hurt its witness, and lie about the character of God.”
 - Mark E. Dever, “The Church” in A Theology for the Church, edited by Daniel L. Akin (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2007).

John Hammett

“History records that though regenerate church membership was at the heart of the origin of Baptists and was for most of Baptist history central to Baptist ecclesiology, it dramatically declined in Baptist life in the twentieth century and is in desperate need of recovery today.”

“Today, a denomination like the Southern Baptist Convention maintains the theology of regenerate church membership in its official statements, but in reality, its churches show little evidence of regeneration in the behavior of their members. It is widely known that divorce and moral problems are as common among church members as nonchurch members. Even the very modest index of attendance at Sunday morning worship shows close to two-thirds of Southern Baptist church members missing on any given Sunday morning. Regenerate church membership cannot be seriously maintained as characterizing most Baptist churches in North America today.”
- John S. Hammett, “Regenerate Church Membership” in Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches, edited by Thomas White, Jason G. Duesing, and Malcolm B. Yarnell III (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2008), 23-27.

John Dagg

In our definition of a church, we have called it an assembly of believers in Christ.  This definition tells what a church is according to the revealed will of God, and not what it becomes by the criminal negligence of its ministers and members, or the wicked craft of hypocritical men who gain admittance into it.  When we study the Word of God to ascertain what a church is, we must receive the perfect pattern as presented in the uncorrupted precepts of that word, and not as marred by human error and crime.
- John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order (Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1990), 80.

“Some have thought that because no church on earth is perfectly free from false professors, it is folly to aim at a perfect church. But we may, with equal propriety, charge any individual man with folly who is striving after personal perfection. The duty of every individual church is, to press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and the duty of every church, and of every church member, is, to strive in every lawful way for church perfection. Though full perfection may not be attained, yet approach to it sufficiently rewards our continual effort; and, apart from all respect to reward, we are obliged to this course, by the command of Christ.”
- John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order, 98.

Churches are often criminally careless, both in the reception of members, and in the discipline of them when received.  If the piety of churches were very fervent, men of cold hearts could not remain happy among them, and could not continue to have their true character concealed.
- John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order, 99.

“The churches are not infallible judges, being unable to search the heart; but they owe it to the cause of Christ, and to the candidate himself, to exercise the best judgment of which they are capable. To receive any one on a mere profession of words, without any effort to ascertain whether he understands and feels what he professes, is unfaithfulness to his interest, and the interests of religion.”
 - John L. Dagg, Manual of Church Order, 269.

J.M. Pendleton

“In accordance with the first way (by experience and baptism), persons wishing to unite with a church give an account of the dealings of God with their souls, and state the ‘reason of the hope that is in them’; whereupon, if, in the judgment of the church they ‘have passed from death unto life,’ they are by vote of the church recognized as candidates for baptism, with the understanding that when baptized they will be entitled to all the rights and privileges of membership.”

“Great care should be exercised in receiving members. Many churches err at this point. They do not observe the requisite caution; for they receive persons who give, to say the least, very imperfect evidence of piety. There is much danger in this, especially in times of religious excitement. Pastors should positively assure themselves that those who are received for baptism have felt themselves to be guilty, ruined, helpless sinners, justly condemned by God’s holy law; and under a sense of their lost condition have trusted in Christ for salvation.”
 - J. M. Pendleton, Baptist Church Manual (Nashville, Broadman Press, 1966), 17-18.