Faithfulness and Membership
I’m wrestling with the question of membership in the United Methodist Church. For the most part, I put little to no stock into the value of membership because I see little to no accountability in the process of membership. I don’t know how church membership is connected to faithful Christian living. The only real value I see is in having people stand in front of the congregation and publically state their commitment to Christ and their willingness to support the church.
This week, I had the very difficult moment of weighing my lack of value on membership with someone living in a way that we at Asbury have deemed outside of the biblical witness. This person was coming back to faith after having walked in some very dark places, and as this person is trying to get their life back together they come for baptism and membership. The church is the rock in this person’s life. In the church, healing is happening. In the church, isolation is fading away. In the church, this person is finding who they really are.
However, there is one large piece of their life that still is causing them grief.This is something some of us might deem as a lifestyle sin. This is something that is ingrained in their life and currently they have no intention of leaving it behind. And now this person comes for membership. What do I say?
I have to address this issue. I have to speak up. It has nothing to do with membership.Membership is not the same as Christian living.And yet, in this instance, membership is the catalyst for a further conversation. There are some serious issues of repentance that must be addressed. Without repentance of this issue, can they faithfully answer the questions asked at membership? Without repentance, can I faithfully ask them the questions?
I hope you get some responses that are more helpful than mine.
You are living the exact cause of our lax membership expectations and standards. The moment you have some life becomes quite challenging for those in leadership.
I suppose the question I would try to work through is how my decision in such as case bears witness to Christ. I don’t think there is just one way to answer that, but your decision and actions are teaching your congregation about what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a church.
God grant you wisdom and mercy.
John, I’m not quite sure I understand what you are saying. I would agree with you that perspectives like mine are the reason for the laxity in membership. The more I think about membership, the more odd this becomes. The Wesleyan movement should have very strong membership expectations, but we don’t live like this. The very fact that it takes 3 years to get someone off the roles of the church is an example of how lax we have become. However, I tried to take a step in the right direction by denying membership to someone this week because of some lifestyle issues.
Your question is the question I am dealing with. How do I bear witness to Christ. This person, this week, is living in a dangerous way. They are not submitting to what God would have for them, which they themselves have said. To me, membership is just the way that I can have that conversation with them… hopefully, this leads to Christ… hopefully, that is.
Spencer, I obviously need to be more careful.
I did not mean you personally. I meant this whole issue is th reason. And I did not mean to come across as judgmental of you or anyone. I was trying to point to the dynamic.
We worry that membership has little meaning.
We try to add accountability and meaning to membership.
We run into the problem that when you have standards and accountability some people do not meet them, which can open up rifts and problems if the congregation is not on board or the standards are not carefully applied.
You are living this challenge. I did not mean to say you were causing it.
Sorry for being clumsy.
Let’s be careful that we aren’t penalizing some people for being honest and open or for being unlucky enough to have their foibles out on public display. A church of sinless people would be an empty church.
Creed, I fully agree with you. I hope that public confession is a part of my ministry, both from myself and my congregation… I pray often for the freedom from self-righteousness for both myself and my church.
That said, we also have to be careful that Christian discipleship means something. The really hard part is trying to describe what it looks like. One of my thoughts is that discipleship means a practice of repentance. I’m not perfect, by God’s grace I’ll grow closer to his holiness, but I am still growing. When we become complacent in our repentance, then how are we growing? If someone, by their own admission, has a sin in their life they are not willing to repent of, then how are we helping them if we ignore it?
Hopefully, I’m not coming off as self-righteous and judgmental because, to be honest, I’m wrestling with these questions and not answering them. The conversation with this person has been heavy on my mind, and I pray that in my folly and weakness, God’s wisdom and strength are shown.
A quick note on accountability in membership: there are accountability measures for egregious acts done by lay members of a church. You can charge laity with offenses and have them be removed from church leadership. This isn’t self-contained within the local church: I know of a pastor who charged a lay member of another church when that member sent the pastor death threats. So while I agree that our membership standards for apathetic or lukewarm Christians are indeed lax, there’s some accountability for egregious examples.
Onward to your question, I suspect your example involves sexual identity, for which I have very specific remarks if you want them. However, my general remarks might be appropriate also:
(1) Membership is about the individual. How might viewing membership as a step in the process of sanctification help with your discernment? Just as Pogue said, sinlessness is not a prerequisite. Perhaps in the process of sanctification the individual might become reconciled with their lifestyle sin. What that reconciliation looks like is not something for you to portent or claim responsibility for.
(2) Membership is about the body. How might granting membership expand or cause reflection of the body on their own membership? In this way, granting membership on a “body” level may be a catalyst to its growth. This skates to the edge of utilitarianism, admittingly, but I’m simply calling for a reliance on the Spirit to guide the body.
(3) Membership is about faithfulness to the Wesleyan tradition. But for Wesley, church membership was never the same as society membership (which had steeper commitments). Why? They were mostly Anglican and retained their membership there! Thus, if you have a second rung of discipleship in place at your church (CD groups, accountability groups, etc), then entrance to that second rung could be more strict (ala society membership in early Methodism). In this way, allowing church membership to this wayward seeker but restricting group membership is actually _more_ faithful to the Wesleyan tradition.
Thoughts? Thanks for the conversation, and I can see your heart bleeding through the black and beige.
Jeremy,
Good points. I am particularly struck by the tension that exists between your point 1 and 2. Membership is for the individual and yet it is also for the body. There is great tension here. On the one hand, it seems that any step towards sanctification (and possibly, for many, still justification) is a good thing and we should help people move towards holiness. On the other hand, it seems that we have to have some communal standards in our local context (and denominational context) that bind us together.
I would think one of these “standards” (sorry, this is a clumsy word) would be living without unconfessed sin. Its one thing for someone to say “I have X sin in my life and this is how I am trying to overcome it”… or even, “I don’t think X is a sin at all”… it is another to say that “I have X sin in my life and I am not willing to do anything about it.” This particular issue that I raise is not about homosexuality or sexual identity… it is about a practice that the person confesses isn’t right.
So, how do we aid the person and the community in moving towards sanctification. I would argue that sometimes the greatest help we can give someone is to hold someone to a standard and take a prophetic role. Its not easy to call out sin… I hate it and it weighs on me for a long time afterwards, but sometimes that may be the most loving thing to do.
Your third point intrigues me. I wonder what this might look like. Its odd that we are at a point where general church membership is not a highly accountable structure in a Wesleyan church given that the local methodist churches are the old societies. Has the UMC become the “Anglican Church?” I feel a blog post coming off this one.
spencer,
great topic and discussion. we have just recently “upped” our “expectations” of what it means to be a member of the church by adding some specifics but i now realize that we do not address an individual who has sin in his/her life s/he does not intend to stop being involved in or seek repentance for.
i think you and UMJeremy are right that membership is both for the individual and the Body. what a tough but beautiful tension. i think because of this you are right in delaying membership for this individual because of the implications for him/her and the congregation. i think it becomes extremely difficult for the individual to live out the membership vows, especially of witness, if s/he is not willing to turn from a known and confessed sin.
also thought you brought up something interesting about the UMC as the “Anglican Church”.
i’ve enjoyed the discussion, thanks for letting me follow along.
My question is, what do you do with this situation when you get to a new appointment and there are already long standing members who are living such sin with no intentions of repentance of sanctification?
Kinda hard to hold any membership standard when the rest of the congregation certainly isn’t living up to one.