church attendance

I agree that if a member is not attending, he or she should not be afforded same membership priviliges as regular attenders. Historically, especially in Baptist circles, one of the gravest sins against the body of Christ was forsaking the worship meetings of His body. We need to recover this idea today.

 

I don't think so, that idea needs to be canned. This is not a lawfirm of christianity folks, where man determines who "qualifies" by church attendance that is really religious and in my thoughts completely sinful.

karen

 

I wouldn't want a sporadic member to be in the choir with me, or teach my daughter sunday school. Or take on any leadership role. It would be hard for me to confide in someone I didn't see in church every Sunday. Would you let a member who only shows up once every 6 weeks vote on an issue facing the church ? I wouldn't.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by katie:
I was wondering if your church had something, rule or by law, about members who don't attend regurly. What I mean is I heard about a chruch who had a rule that if a memebr didn't attend every so many Sundays they were taken off the roll.
What do you think?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Inactive membership is one fo the greatest curses of Baptist churches. We all know horror stories of people showing up for business meetings who haven't attended church in years just to vote against spending $500 or voting to fire a pastor who has offended some by preaching the gospel to sinners.

Inactive members should be purged from the rolls. Membership in the universal body of Christ does not demand unending fellowship with the local assembly. A gangrene limb is cut off for the health of the body. A church should have a member's covenant whereby members agree to attend and participate in minstry at a reasonable level.

One way to eliminate dead members is to renew the covenant yearly. If someone does not wish to recovenant, they can be removed from membership. A true believer should have no problem covenanting with their church body.

 

In our church, 6 months of absence without contact will remove you from the the roll. In order to vote in a business meeting, you must have attended 13 of the past 39 services (once a week for the previous quarter). This is because of the very thing Chris mentioned, where some people stacked a business meeting with people who had not been in church in years in order to win the vote. Those "members" swayed the vote to the position of the minority of active membership.

The church is not a lawfirm but as a self-governing, autonomous body, it should be governed by those who are faithful to its mission and philosophy. Chris's point about re-signing the covenant every year is a good one.

 

I don't honestly know my ABC church's policy, but my old IFB....can you believe they would chase you down if you took vacation for a week and didn't tell anyone? And attendance was basically required SS, Sunday AM, PM, Weds. night....and any other night they had things planned. If you didn't show up for special conferences and revivals you were... good heavens....shunned! I believe you SHOULD make every effort possible to be faithful to the church you belong to, but once again, the old church suffered from excess disease!

 

Our Bylaws read, in part: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Section 5. Members:
a. Any member withdrawing from the fellowship of this Church for a period of two (2) months, without sufficient cause, will automatically be dismissed from the membership roll. Sufficient cause is described as; serious debilitating illness requiring hospitalization or in-home nursing care, unavoidable absence from the city (such as required military service), or other circumstances that are approved by the Pastor and Deacons.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>In a strictly legal sense, there is no such thing as an "inactive member." Any person whose name is on the membership roll has full membership privileges including voting and even being elected to office. If a church attempts to hinder the "full enjoyment" of church membership of an inactive member, I.E., prevent voting or being elected to office, the "inactive member" has a solid cause of action against the church. It is much better to terminate the person's membership, and allow them to rejoin if they change their minds about being faithful.

 

Our church doesn't have any official policies about attendance, but if they don't see you for a while, the pastor will come looking for you.

When our pastor first got to the church, he nailed a sign up over the entrance to the sanctuary that said, "Church is NOT a spectator sport" and one over the exit that says, "You are now entering the mission field".

Mike

[ December 10, 2001: Message edited by: Smoke_Eater ]

 

I remember a phone call I recieved from our assistant pastor a year or so ago. He called to see how we were doing, and since I grew up in churches all my life where the pastor was downright rude and nosey in our where abouts I was quick to tell our assistant pastor that we had intended on being in church that sunday, he laughed and said Karen, do you love Jesus? I said of coures I love Jesus..he said that's all that matters to me, I wasn't calling to "make you feel guilty" about being in church, that's between you and God. I was calling to tell you I care about you and wanted to make sure all is well with you. That phone call really showed me that our church really cared about what was going on with us and if we were ok or not..had nothing to do with church attendance.

karen