In order to prepare for growth and outreach Chard Baptist are looking at Purpose Driven church, one of the principles of which is membership. This raises several issues for me. Membership in itself is not something I am fully confident about and whilst I understand many of the arguments, the approach to membership as we enter post Christendom seems all the more problematic.
How do you begin to grow towards maturity without membership? Murry in The church after Christendom offers a great critique of Matt 18 v 15-17
15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Whilst I accept the possible intended use of the language of tax collector/pagan to signify an outsider, it is interesting that this is only one of two times the bible actually places the word church on Jesus’ lips. I would want to explore the creative tension that verse 17 throws up as we begin to consider how Christ would have treated tax collectors or pagans. Murry points this out but I would want to push this issue towards a maturity without membership, that does admonish one another in a non dislocating way, and uses the process well to reaffirm core beliefs so the whole community matures, but does not exile people who disaggree.
How do we treat ‘pagans and tax collectors’ – hopefully with respect and love, but perhaps we don’t have intimate fellowship with them based on a high degree of trust and shared purpose.
I’ve always wondered about this passage since I was a teenager. I remember when someone got ‘excommunicated’ from my very fundamental church when I was 14 I knew that if I was to treat them as an unbeliever I would be treating them just the same as my Christian friends, but maybe not so intimately.
Having said that, just recently I’ve finding that I can be clsoe to and have ‘intimate fellowship’ with people who are not Christians. With one particular friend it is a spiritually enriching experience for both of us, as her humanistic spirituality and my christian spirituality meet one another, sometimes clash and challenge one another to deepen, grow, and mature!
No, she aint a member of any churches… but she’s a significant part of challenging my faith and spirituality to grow to maturity!