A-C of Rural Church Membership

Planting a rural church is a rollercoaster.  That has been our experience.  It is hard when you’re uncertain whether people, who have become involved in your church, are going to stay or not.

When numerous people visit for a while and then leave for a larger, farther away (and perhaps urban) church with more established ministries, it can leave you feeling sad and insecure. 

Family not fickle

Like you, I’m persuaded that church is not an event but a family of Jesus followers.  If rural churches are to flourish, then we need committed brothers and sisters.

Of course, rural churches must be hospitals for the wounded and homes for God’s people at various stages of life and Christian maturity.  We must be a welcoming and gracious community for people with various needs, health (mental and physical) issues and other challenges. 

But rural churches need people committed to sharing their lives in love.  Rural churches need people who are clearly and unambiguously invested in our shared ministry.

So, why should you be a committed member of your local rural church?

1.  First, A - Accountability.

When you become a member of your rural church (whatever that process looks like), you are making solemn promises to your brothers and sisters: to pray, to give, to serve, to be present, to shape your life (with them) around God’s Word.

Your membership is a tangible response to Ephesians 5:21; a call to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Through your membership, you declare “I am committed to being here to help you stand firm, press on and mature in the faith.”

And listen, through your membership, you are also inviting other members (and your leaders) to speak into your life, in order that your promises might bear fruit - so that you and your rural church would shine even more brightly.

A - membership helps keep you accountable and this accountability is vital if we are to be a light in our rural communities.

2.  Second, B- Biblical

Our bibles do not give an imperative to have a formal membership like the one enjoyed by my own church, but membership is implicit in the New Testament:

• In Titus 1, Paul instructs Titus to appoint elders in every town to care for those amongst them.

• In 1 Peter 5, Peter gives a charge to elders, to shepherd the flock of God that The Lord has placed in their care.

• In Matthew 18, Jesus’s instruction (on dealing with a sinful brother or sister), assumes a church membership.  At the end of a process, of lovingly pursuing someone who is sinning, the issue is to be taken to the church.

• 1 Corinthians 5, speaks about putting someone out of the church. This, of course, can’t be done unless you know who is in in the first place.

• In Acts 6, there is a church election.

• In 1 Timothy 5, we see a clear teaching on widows within the family of believers - those on a church list.

• And, in Hebrews 13:17, it says this:

  Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.

It is biblical for you and others to know who is in your rural church and who is not.  It is biblical for the elders to know who is submitting to their authority and who they are accountable for.  It is biblical to empower church members to make key decisions about the life of your rural church.

Membership of your rural church is biblical, and with an unambiguous biblical membership, your church can, with greater confidence, invest resources (including human) into shared rural ministries to reach the least and the lost.

3.  Finally, C- membership is Counter-cultural.

The world is marked by consumerism.  By consumerism, I mean a culture which is driven by my needs, my desires, my preferences, my priorities. A flirting low level of commitment.  In rural churches we feel this consumerism as people come for the good life and, after a flirting visit or two, disappear into the ether in pursuit of larger more established churches.

To enjoy membership of your local rural church is to be counter-cultural.  Your membership declares a selfless and sacrificial commitment to others - to even those not like you.  

Your rural church membership communicates to others that, though you belong to a small church, you are part of something bigger than yourself; that you are part of a committed family.  A counter-cultural family that demonstrates the truth of the gospel.  A family qualified and adopted by our Father.  A family redeemed by the blood of Christ.  A family given life, empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit. A family with a shared mission and vision to be a light in an area of need.

Through our membership of our local rural church, we are accountable, biblical and counter-cultural.

It is my prayer that more and more people would consider unamiguous commitment to a gospel formed and gospel proclaiming rural church.

Rob Scothern

Rob is pastor of Peak Trinity Church in Derbyshire, England. He is part of the Rural Project steering committee. He studied with Porterbrook Learning and Crosslands Seminary, is married to Claire, and has three children (Grace, Harry and Theo).