Thoughts on Church Membership

Hebrews 13:17 tells believers to “Obey your leaders and submit to them,” but how do you decide who your leaders are? 1 Peter 5:2 tells church leaders to “shepherd the flock that is among you,” but how do church leaders decide who they're supposed to shepherd?

The New Testament never clearly describes what we today understand as church membership, but it’s clearly implied. Peter told the elders “shepherd the flock that is among you.” They aren’t to shepherd every Christian they ever come across. Peter assumes that the elders know exactly who they are responsible for and who they will have to give an account to God about. The elders know who they are responsible for because they know exactly what people have committed themselves to their leadership. To fulfill their responsibility, the elders of a church must be a part of a church that has a clear membership list of people he is responsible to provide spiritual leadership for.

Peter tells the believers to shepherd the flock that is among them. God doesn’t envision Christians submitting to the leadership of one church on a Sunday morning one week, then another church on Wednesday night of that week, then another church the next Sunday morning. God calls us to commit ourselves to one body of believers and the leadership of that body of believers. If you’re a member of this church, the leaders of this church are responsible for you. If a believer is a member of one church, but they’re also regularly attending another church, that believer is making it difficult for the leadership of their church to be obedient in watching over their soul if they’re not fully committed to that church alone. This doesn’t mean that God gets angry at you if you visit another church with a friend every once in awhile. It simply means that you are committed to your church and not another.

Spiritual leaders care for the spiritual health of the members they are responsible for. They have to give an account to God for how well they’ve done this. Obeying and submitting to leaders means that you live lives that honor God, and if the leader is a genuine God-appointed leader, how to do that will be reflected in his teaching. Your leaders help you to understand what God is trying to communicate to you about your life. They don’t dictate God’s will to you, but they help you to understand how to hear and communicate with God yourself. Obeying and submitting also means that you understand and devote yourself to the vision God has given the leader of your church.

In Ephesians 4:16 Paul says that a church can’t grow the way it is supposed to if each member isn’t working properly. Every church member is important and serves a role in their church that the church suffers for if that member doesn’t fulfill their role. Church members cannot be only halfway committed to their church because both they and the church suffer if they do.

Although the New Testament never outlines the concept of church membership, the whole of the New Testament assumes that believers will commit themselves to one body of believers and exercise their gifts there. God has placed spiritual leaders over specific churches so that people will submit to the leadership of that church.

Book Review: Isolation by Travis Thrasher

ISOLATION is the story of a missionary family on furlough from serving in Papua New Guinea. As the back cover mentions, what they experienced while on the mission field left their faith challenged and barely hanging on. As the story progresses we learn that the demons of their past have literally followed them to the mountains of North Carolina where they have settled down for their furlough.

The highlight of the story is 8 year old Zachary who doesn't seem to struggle with his faith the way his parents do. The house family lives in is massive, and it features many secret passageways for Zachary to explore. In fact, there is one whole side of the house that is blocked off from the family that holds many dark secrets that will challenge the family's faith even further.

ISOLATION is obviously reminiscent of Stephen King's THE SHINING, and Thrasher does a great job of amping up the fright factor in a novel that could be described as Christian horror. The story deals with demon possession and reveals the nature of things unseen, but ultimately the light of Jesus shines through.

ISOLATION was very well-written. The characters were well developed and easy to identify with. The story is most fun to read at night in the dark to really get the fright factor from it.

It's a great message of hope in the midst of a struggle against very real evil.

Book Review: Nightmare by Robin Parrish

Pealing Back The Veil Of This World

Nightmare is the fifth Robin Parrish novel I've read, and his talent for creating a compelling story that taps into the spiritual realm inside of us keeps me coming back for more. Nightmare is the story of Maia Peters, the daughter of two well-known paranormal investigators. In an attempt to create a life of her own away from the world of paranormal investigation, Maia accepts an offer by Jordin Cole to take her on several paranormal investigations during school breaks from Columbia University. In return, Jordin pays Maia more than enough to fund her education so that she can pave the way to a career in law enforcement. However, Jordin has gone missing, and her fiance Derek, an aspiring pastor, seeks Maia's help to find her.

The story alternates between the present day where Derek and Maia are searching for Jordin and flashbacks of the year before when Maia and Jordin were going on their paranormal investigation trips. The alternation between the present and flashbacks seems slightly reminiscent of LOST, but I think it works really well.

I loved the characters. Especially Maia, since we spend the entire story inside of her head, so we really get to know her well. Jordin is interesting as well, as we're trying to figure out why she's trying to tap into the spiritual realm. Finally, Derek seemed like he was going to be a stereotypical Christian at the beginning, but as the story progresses, we see a character deeply grounded in his faith and his love for Jordin.

One of my favorite parts of the story was near the end when we see a very visible evidence of the Holy Spirit in the life of some of the characters. I don't want to spoil the ending, however.

Although some Christians will find the subject matter of paranormal investigation uncomfortable, I think Robin Parrish did a very good job with it. In the end, I think the story pointed to God very well.