Beyond a Club

Why should I become a member of this church?"

A woman posed the question to me after a worship service one Sunday morning. Her question was one I heard a lot. Usually it came from people already involved in the life of our church. They participated in small groups, gave financially, and served on ministry teams. "I'm already involved in this church," they would say, "what's the point of becoming a member?"

Unfortunately, I couldn't give a good answer. At that point, membership was largely a formality. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that I was ambivalent about the whole idea of membership in the first place. We were a new church and I was tempted to toss membership altogether. I worried it reinforced a consumer mentality about church. How is joining the church any different from joining the health club? I thought. When you go to your local health club and tell them you are considering paying their monthly fee (and probably not going that often), they tell you all the things you will have access to as a member. They show you the gym, the weights, and exercise machines, the basketball/tennis/racquetball courts, and the seven different types of yoga classes available. The point: you get a lot for the money you are paying. As a member, you have the right to all these different goods and services any time you want to come. That wasn't the attitude we wanted to cultivate among the people seeking to join the life of our church.

And yet we wanted to help people recognize the necessity of their commitment to the community. Without membership of some kind, how would people understand that this was truly their church? And so we had membership, but like a lot of churches, we weren't presenting it well.

We wanted membership to describe a way of life, not merely what we believed or what we "got" for being in the club.

The realization hit me after one rather uneventful membership meeting. A member approached me and graciously asked what his role in the meeting was supposed to be. He kindly informed me what it was like to sit through a membership meeting where his only real role was to receive reports about what was going on. Essentially, he was asking, "Is this all membership means? Hearing reports, signing off on some beliefs, and occasionally voting?"

Something had to change. We wanted meaningful membership, so we went back to the drawing board. We tried to imagine how being a member in our church could reflect what we believed it meant to participate in what God was doing in our local community. Ultimately we decided that we wanted membership to describe a way of life, not merely what we believed or what we "got" for being in the club. We wanted membership that demanded something of people.

Reshaping Our Core

Over the course of the next year, we discussed the practices we wanted to define our life together. It was a big shift. We moved from being a static group of people in general agreement about our beliefs to a community committed to moving in the same direction. We called this "covenant membership." This is not a unique term, but it communicated our new understanding of membership. We began challenging members of our church to make a covenant commitment to pursue a way of life focused on God's leadership in our community.

We defined this way of life by our "core commitments." The first core commitment is to a spiritual practice of daily discernment, where each covenant member daily asks, "What is God up to?" and "How does God want me/us to respond?" By committing to this practice, covenant members seek to approach each day as a chance to be part of what God is doing in whatever setting they find themselves in.

The second core commitment is to actively love our "community." The word "community" is meant to be ambiguous. It describes both our church community and our neighborhood. We commit to connecting with fellow members throughout the week and seeking out relationships with new people. We want to connect with people who are different from us in age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, and socio-economic background.

Our last core commitment describes our desire to serve Northeast Minneapolis, where we worship and where many of us live. This includes active service with our local partners, as well as prayer for the life of the school where we worship on Sunday. Serving locally is an essential part of what it means to be the church for us.

A New Conversation

Today when people express interest in membership, we have very different conversations. Over lunch with one woman, we talked about her reservations in becoming a member. She feared she wouldn't be able to be consistent enough in the practices outlined in the covenant. She talked about growing up in a legalistic environment, where faith was equated with performance. It was a conversation she needed to have. The reframing of membership created an opportunity for us to gently teach her about what it means to live out one's faith, by God's grace, in community.

The final step in the process of becoming a covenant member is sharing your story of becoming a follower of Jesus. This takes place over a meal with others. Not only does this create space for new members to affirm their faith, it also develops relationships with those whom they are committing to live alongside.

Recently, a group entering into covenant membership shared their stories together. They represented several generations and came from very different backgrounds. Some of them wept as they shared the struggles that brought them into relationship with Jesus. The experience of listening to each other was a crucial first step in pursuing a way of life together.

Instead of membership being passive, it's now impossible to come to a meeting and not be an active participant.

Our membership meetings have changed dramatically. We now focus our gatherings on practicing our way of life together as a community. We often start meetings by meditating on Scripture together and sharing what we think God might be saying to us. We take time to celebrate what God has done in and through our church. We practice prayer and discernment together by asking God what to do next as a community. Instead membership being passive, it's now impossible to come to a meeting and not be an active participant. We strive to have each meeting embody how we are trying to live together each and every day.

There is still business to do, like there is in any church. But the work of discussing budgets, appointing leaders, amending constitutions, takes on a very different feel in the midst of a group of people who are active participants who have committed to pursuing God together.

My reluctance about membership has disappeared. I now see how much it matters because it reflects the commitment we have to one another and to God. It reflects our commitment to following Jesus as a way of life. It's a commitment that goes beyond our preferences in worship music or church programs. In a society where a one-year cell phone contract seems like a big commitment, pursuing God's mission together is a dramatic declaration of our faith.

The changes we made resulted in some people deciding they didn't want to be members anymore. Some felt the commitment was too high. But that's okay. Church membership should be costly and not everyone is prepared to make that commitment. For those who do, the rewards are incredible. We are invited into a spiritual family where we participate together in the work God is doing in the world.

Michael Binder is pastor of Mill City Church in Northeast Minneapolis.