Membership Sucks

"Membership" has become about the most useless category for understanding the church. The congregation that I serve has "members" who live hours away - you can imagine how active they are in our community. If the congregation is the local expression of the universal body of Christ - then the "members" of it ought to be local; that is, they should be a part of the local community.

In my tradition (and in many mainline traditions), a person remains a member as long as they attend or contribute once every two years! What sort of discipleship are we teaching? I regularly tell people when they move off that they should find a congregation in their community to worship at and participate in - rather than making sure they come back here once a year to keep up their membership.

I don't care about members. I care about disciples - men and women who have chosen to follow Jesus, and to attempt to live the lives he has called us to. There is a country club down the road, and two rotary clubs in town, if people want to pay their dues and be members somewhere.