Why Join a Church?

Sunday at Covenant Life we welcomed about 120 new members who have joined us over the past six months. These men and women completed our 10-week Starting Point class where they learned about our doctrinal convictions and participated in small group discussion led by pastors. They met with a pastor, clearly expressed their faith in the death of Jesus Christ for their sins, and signed our church's membership agreement. They came to us from 17 countries including Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Korea, Nicaragua, Peru, Slovenia, and Taiwan. Before I introduced them I read the following quote by Eric Lane about church membership:

"God has given us four pictures of the church, not one. This is not just to emphasize and prove the point by repetition, but also to say four different things about what it means to be a member of a church. To be a stone in his temple means to belong to a worshipping community. To be part of a body means to belong to a living, functioning, serving, witnessing community. To be a sheep in the flock means belonging to a community dependent on him for food, protection, and direction. To be a member of a family is to belong to a community bound by a common fatherhood. Put together you have the main functions of an individual Christian. Evidently we are meant to fulfill these not on our own but together in the church. Now can you see the answer to the question why you should join a church?"--G. Eric Lane, I Want to Be A Church Member (Bryntirion, Wales: Evangelical Press of Wales, 1992), p. 21.

If you've never considered the importance of participation and commitment in a local church I'd encourage you to read Donald Whitney's book Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church. The quote by Lane is drawn from a chapter in Whitney's book that you can read here.