Joining the Church

If You Want to Join Us

Receiving members is a church matter. Paul did not write Romans to a pastor or to a board. He wrote it to the church. "Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on opinions" (Romans 14:1, LSB). The church receives. The church is also bound. Our authority stops where the Word of God stops.

What Has to Be True First

Two things have to be true before anyone is received.

1. You have to be saved.

   On the day of Pentecost, "those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:41, LSB). They received the word, and then they were added. Some churches will take a person into the membership who has never been born again. We will not. Salvation puts you in the family of God. It does not, by itself, put you in the church. The Bible does not teach a universal church that you join first and a local church that you join later.

2. You have to be baptized, and baptized scripturally.

   Getting wet is not the same thing as baptism. In Acts 19 Paul found disciples at Ephesus who had been baptized, and he baptized them again, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Their first baptism was not scriptural. The Lord gave this ordinance to His church. When someone asks to join us, we ask about their salvation, and we ask about their baptism. If the baptism was not scriptural, we baptize them. That is what Paul did.

How Members Are Received

Most of our members came in one of three ways.

1. Some were saved and baptized into this church.

   That is the ordinary way for a new believer. You hear the gospel, the Lord saves you, you follow Him in baptism, and the church receives you.

2. Some came by letter.

   Paul commended Phoebe to the church at Rome and told them to receive her in the Lord (Romans 16:1–2). The churches wrote letters of commendation for members who were moving (2 Corinthians 3:1; Acts 18:27). We still do that with churches of like faith. The sending church writes. The receiving church votes. We do not hand out a blanket letter as the normal practice. A letter is addressed to a church.

3. Some, rarely, are received by statement.

   That is for a case where the church has disbanded and there is no one left to write, or where a person was put out of a church for no scriptural reason. Third John names a man who cast people out of the church because he loved the preeminence. A church vote is not always a righteous one. We respect the discipline of another church, and we also inquire. If the exclusion was unbiblical and it cannot be made right, the church may receive that person on a statement of faith. We will not receive someone who was rightly excluded and has not repented.

Done in Order

"But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner" (1 Corinthians 14:40, LSB). That covers receiving members and removing them. We do not want emotional reasons or mere custom deciding either one.