Common law membership

No, you have not told me who this person or organization is within a church.

Are you Baptist? If so where does the priesthood of the believer come into your theology?

 

I know of a church where the pastor and deacons took it upon themselves to "relax" the church's membership requirements. Never told the congregation what they were doing. Those they let in were supposedly not to make their disagreements an issue. Guess what happened.

 

In some people's minds, the priesthood of believers trumps the authority of Scripture.

 

I agree. Crabby doesn't think anyone has any authority in the church. How could you when you doubt the very authority of the Bible?

 

The Apostles were leaders who people followed in submission. Paul set many things in order over the churches he wrote to. Paul set the order of those who made up the structure of the church. The priesthood of the believer doesn't allow for room to go against that order, it only gives him the liberty to adhere to what our bible teaches. God still calls all our actions into judgement

 

It is not honest to take such liberties with the truth. The Bible has authority ... many interpretations do not.

 

You seemed to be speaking in the present tense. Now you have switched to the past tense. Who are you speaking of in the churches of today that have authority over others?

How is the authority manifest?

 

This has been an interesting conversation.

My parents moved from one state to another, 35 years ago. They still haven't moved their church membership (if they were indeed members) from the church I was baptized in (and therefore a member of though we left when I was 10). The only answer I ever get from them is that there are no churches in their "new" state that believe just the way they believe. So instead, they attend here and there and have stayed at various churches for YEARS, without formally joining the congregation. My dad goes on visitation and does all sorts of stuff, (right now for 2 different churches, lol). On his part, he is not bothered by not getting to vote and I'm guessing that that all these churches have practiced open communion because he's never complained about not being able to participate and he has helped serve on occasion.

For the churches' part, they have all just "absorbed" them into the congregation after a couple of years of attendance.

I on the other hand joined a church, formally, once I was an adult on my own. I felt it was somewhat dishonest to attend a church without taking on the responsibility for how it was run and the direction it was running.

I can't really prove if either point of view is correct. Nor can I say that either way is incorrect.

The Bible says "forsaking not the fellowship". It doesn't give strict instructions on how that fellowship is to be constructed.

Just my 2 cents.

 

At what time do we stop following the examples before us in how the first church was structured until now? A man is to take charge, not the individual liberty found according to the distinctive of soul liberty to over rule that leadership

 

I'm sorry, who is the head of the church?

 

No, about 10 years ago we searched for all of them, some had moved away and never transfered membership, a bunch were dead, a few had gone to other denoms, and soem just weren't interested, about 3 came back for a while and elft again.

 

There should definately be a list, how are you to know who your actual mambers are otherwise.
Our old church has a good list.
We found in the new members class at our new church, not so much, theres no offical list of the members actually are. I think there was a plan on fixing this. I do beleive once we got the new pastor this would ahve been something he'd have wanted fixed.

 

A couple of observations, if I may.

First, church fellowship is a covenant relationship with each other and with the Lord Jesus Christ. Covenants involve commitments from all parties to the covenant. Those commitments should not be treated lightly.

There are practical reasons for maintaining a list of members. Names, phone numbers, and other information can be quite useful. For mailing lists, for instance.

There is something vaguely disturbing to me about those who are willing to attend your church regularly, even do stuff around the church, but are not willing to be baptized, nor ask the church to receive them into the fellowship. And there is something quite disturbing about a church that thinks so little of itself that it'll permit that.

Salty, the title of this thread is quite applicable here. Living together, but no commitment on either side. And no ring.

 

FYI: A common law marriage is a mutual commitment to be husband and wife.

 

1. When they built the first building and stopped being a house church.

2. And especially when the church became the official church of the empire by Constantine.

People keep talking about authority, but no one so far tells me who has the authority, why they have it or how it is to be exercised in the modern day church.

 

There are benefits to membership.

• You become a part of the voting membership, you hold a stake in the way the church is run.
  
• You also become subject to church discipline.
• Too many complian that churches don't perform this function anymore but the limiting factor in many cases is that the offender very commonly is only an attender and not a member. This creates a legal entanglements for the eldership.

Common law members would not be legally recognised in court.

Rob

 

Your church had members in it who died and you all didn't even know??? SAD!

 

James was the head of the 1st church, he had enough authority to write a book of the bible. Read it sometime. Our 350faithful members can't meet in anybody's house except we build a sanctuary large enough. Do you object to that too?

 

not legal here
not a commitment, but an easy way out when your unhappy with the situation, no need for divorce, a lack of commitment to refuse marriage.

 

when people move 500 miles away and do not tell the church they no longer want to be members, whats sad is the level of commitment these people had towards church, which was nonexistant.