Members

Last updated on July 31, 2020

What do the members of a Congregation look like

• • • All Christians are members

    • No age, maturity or length or time requirement

    • Everyone is expected to be active

    • Gift use

The early Church, and especially the first Church, did not contain the range of Gospel knowledge that the churches do now days.  There wasn’t enough time to between Christ departure and the Church creation to establish the range.  A lot of Judaism is applicable to Christianity, so to a degree the older Jewish people could and did act as elders; but they two were young Christians.

As the Churched aged and Christians learned to be Christ like, the spectrum between mature and immature Christians increased, and true Elders and teachers appeared.

However, from the Churches inception, New Christians were part of the Church right off.  When the early Church works are spoken of, there is no mention of exceptions of certain members of the congregation.  The assumption made is that New Christians have something to offer and ability with which to share.  We know this is true because 1 Peter 4:10 states that everyone should use their gift.

So it should be expected for a new Christian to be active members of a congregation from the get go.  Use of a gift is considered stewardship just as managing and tithing all that God has entrusted you with.  And you will have to give an accounting to God for everything at Judgement time (Romans 14:12).

Unfortunately, congregations contain people from vigilant to lazy to non-existent and everything in between.  It’s said that 90% of the church work is performed by 10% of the people.  I doubt there has been a formal study but a few vigilant and vibrant people, not necessarily the leaders, are out giving it their all.

1. The Vigilant and vibrant – Members that are at church every time the door is open. They there to help with anything and usually won’t wait to be asked to volunteer.  These are usually seen as the leaders of the church.  Elders, deacons, teachers or preachers are not always these people.
2. The Regulars, those that attend very regularly and will volunteer to help, even scheduling other things around to make themselves available for service and typically don’t have to be beat up to obtain there assistance.
3. The “If I’m Not Doing Anything Else” group may attend frequently and may help with something like serving communion or maybe VBS if they don’t have anything else to do.
4. The Pew Fillers, also sometimes referred to as Members, those that come to the Sunday morning service somewhat frequently but typically do not participate in anything.
5. The Crister people, those that come to church on Christmas and Easter.
6. And then there are the Registered, those are people that want the “membership” status of a church for some reason and rarely if ever attend anything churchy.  Perhaps they want it because they feel by being registered with the church, they’ll get funeral services, or it helps to fill in a spot on the resume by entering a church under activates and clubs.

It may be difficult, looking at the list above, it is difficult to determine if one is looking at a community church or a club or organization.  And my experience with a lot of churches, you can’t tell; except for a brief time at one church, I have had more contact and concern with club members than I haven with any congregation of my adult life.  And that’s a shame.  My experience has been that most congregations are in the 3-4 range from the list above.

This article wasn’t written to be a discouragement to new Christians or those Christians looking for a new church home.  It was written to be an honest observation of what most of our churches look like today.  It also gives an idea of what Church members were intended to be.

Let me make a disclaimer here and state that the Bible, nor Christ, gives a number that one must attend church to be a Christian, or a formula (church attendance, service, communion participation, etc.) to in which to calculate if they are obtaining the Christian minimum or how close they are to the next level.  Also, the list above is my list.  It is not a Biblical list nor taken or borrowed from anyone else.

As a new Christian or one looking for a church home, if you encounter a congregation that exhibits mostly members on the bottom of the list and few on top, move on.  Don’t get the idea that you could be the catalyst to change things.  As a new Christian, your job is to learn not to change the congregation.  And if you’re looking for a new church home, don’t believe that you can come in with whatever your experience and get everyone in line; it could happen but usually that’s not something that a new person is going to be allowed to do.

It is the congregation’s responsibility to make the necessary changes.  Hopefully, Elders and the church leaders will recognize the congregations indifference and start making the changes or getting the necessary help to guide the church through necessary changes.  Often times preachers, new to a congregation, will fire people up and get appropriate changes started and my experience leads me to believe that few can ever get a fire going after they've been there a while.