Church membership allows the pastors/elders to know who they are ultimately responsible for. In Scripture they were responsible for specific sheep (i.e. the flock). It is for this flock that pastors will have to give an account before Jesus Christ (Heb 13:17). To give an account, pastors/elders must know who they are accountable for. They cannot be responsible for everyone, but only those who are part of their flock.

  • 1 Peter 5:2 “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you…not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”
  • Acts 20:28 “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

Just as the pastors/elders must know who they are responsible for, the church must know who they are to follow. By becoming a member of a local church you are placing yourself under the watch and care of specific leaders who have been given the task of shepherding your soul. Church membership is the act of committing to a specific flock that is graciously governed by qualified elders.

  • Heb 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
  • 1 Tim 5:17 “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor…”

Church discipline implies church membership. In each of the following cases, an individual is living in stubborn, unrepentant sin and thus removed from the church. The question this raises is, “How can someone be removed from the church who has not first belonged to it?” They can’t. Someone cannot be put out of the church if they have never officially been in the church. 

  • 1 Cor 5:13 “God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you..’”
  • Titus 3:10 “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him…”
  • 1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued to be with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”
  •  Mat 18:15-20 “If your brother sins against you…if he refuses to listen, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”