Baptism preceding Church Membership

I'd completely forgotten about it until I read it in this thread, but I vaguely remember hearing it somewhere before. I'm going to have to think of the place and context though.

I do think we should be baptized in order to join. Maybe it's just a quasi-join (full-membership pending) until the baptism???

 

DP, what part of the US was this in? (if you don't mind answering. I noticed you don't have a location listed and don't want you to feel pressured to give more info than you are comfortable with) But I was wondering if there is a locale in which this term might be more prevalent.

 

Welcome to the South DP

I've been in SBC churches most of my adult life and like I said, I can only vaguely remember it. I think it was in a church in Texas, but I've also been in Tennessee, so it could have been there.

SBC are a varied lot. They run from the more liberal to very traditional, so please, please don't let one color your perception of them all. I used to lead conferences for the association we were in and couldn't believe how incredibly different some of the churches were.

 

This is what we do, although it is not considered membership until the candidate is baptized. Like McDirector has explained. The candidate makes a public profession of faith and is introduced to the congregation. No vote is ever taken. When the candidate is baptized he or she becomes a member.

 

I've not heard, and am uncomfortable with the OP verbiage "on promise of baptism".

Perhaps it is just an inarticulate way of describing this:

Hiscox's New Directory for Baptist Churches:

Pendleton's Baptist Church Manual:

 

Like Zenas, I'm from Kentucky, and reared in Tennessee. My own experience is the same as Zenas. Everywhere I'm familiar, the church will vote on candidates for baptism, who will become members upon their baptism. If something happens in between the vote and the dunking--it's all off.

Now, in the case of transfer of membership, candidates are voted on "on promise of a letter" from a congregation of like faith and order. Again, if we don't get the letter, it's all off.

Another way we receive members is "by statement." In a case where records have been lost, or the previous church has gone belly up, or something like that, a candidate will state that they have been scripturally baptized in a church of like faith and order. We usually take them at their word and vote them in.

Frankly, it's my personal opinion (a minority view in my church) that we are much too quick on the trigger. We need to guard the doors of our church a bit better.

 

An odd statement, if one does not believe Water Baptism has anything to do with their salvation.

 

Why assume that it was in the US at all? As it turns out, it was, but as DeaconPhil had not said on his profile where he lives, it could have been anywhere in the world.

I have not heard of this "promise of baptism" thing here in the UK, though it may happen in some churches - I'm far from omniscient!

 

From "Discipline of the Church at the Metropolitan Tabernacle," J. A Spurgeon:

 

You are of course correct, it could have been anywhere. BUT he did mention SBC in the OP which are found more often in the USA and even more often than that in the US South.

 

Originally Posted by Tom Butler
Frankly, it's my personal opinion (a minority view in my church) that we are much too quick on the trigger. We need to guard the doors of our church a bit better.

I don't see anything odd here, so maybe you can expand on your post to help me see it.

I hold that water baptism is the door to local church membership. Therefore, we need to be diligent in assuring the best we can that we baptize only true converts.

The evidence that we have not done a good job guarding our doors is that in most churches, attendance by 40% of members at Sunday Services is the norm.

I know of one megachurch which had 30,000 people on its church rolls, but only about 10,000 showed up on Sunday. This was true in my own church for a long time. What kind of gospel did they respond to, that they eventually dropped out?