Summer 2009 - Brethren in Christ Church

in partTO THE POINTSome research* indicates that church attendees today are less loyal to specific congregations or denominationsthan were their parents and/or grandparents. This has coincided with a simultaneous dropin the practice of church membership. What is your church’s stance on membership and how does itpractice accountability in light of that approach?Tim Daythe meeting houseOakville, ONIn the past, the churches have relied on institutional loyalty as expressedin formal documents, like membership covenants and doctrinal statements.Yet we have not done the hard work of helping people experience what itmeans to live as a vital member of a family.Our church [The Meeting House] has a formal membership for ourleaders, but we define our core community as those who actually live incommunity by taking part in a small group, giving faithfully, and activelyserving. People “sign” their membership commitment by how they live incommunity, not how they sign a paper. We believe this better reflects theearly Jesus movement as well as our Anabaptist heritage.Peter H. von KeyserlingRidge View BICRoanoke, Va.I am not sure membership is functionallyrelated to community and accountability in today’sworld. If membership is not valued, then it cannotbe used as a wedge to gain compliance.Today, church discipline will not likely correctmost infringements of church rules and moral lapses.It will more likely drive away the transgressor. Love,on the other hand, has a better-than-ever chance ofbringing out a correction. If love is active within thechurch, then accountability is self-imposed.Esther Spurriermacha (Zambia) bicEven after many years, I continue to be amazed athow important church membership is here in Zambia.We attend Macha BIC Church—the mother congregationof the Zambia BIC Conference that has about1,000 in attendance on a good Sunday. People are baptizedand members are received once a year. Others whohave been on church discipline are restored; this afterthey have publically confessed, been counseled in theircongregations, and been approved for reinstatement.(Many are dis-fellowshipped for sexual sins or havingentered into polygamous marriage situations.) It seemsa long and painful process and speaks to the importancepeople place on right standing within the communityof believers. Perhaps a strong value on group identitywithin the Zambian society reinforces this.John Arthur BrubakerUpland (Calif.) BICIn a positive sense, the local church has adapted to the decline in congregationalloyalty by becoming quite ready to quickly accept new attendees.My childhood memory is that newcomers to the congregation were held atarm’s length for a long time before being fully accepted by the church family.In a negative sense, congregations are increasingly reluctant to addressbehavior that may call for church discipline, knowing that members caneasily evade the issue by moving on to another congregation.Ideally, there should be a mutual understanding between churches, notonly within the denomination but also within the larger community, so thatwhen persons move to another congregation, pastors are in communicationand agree to require that all unresolved issues in the former congregation beresolved before these persons are fully accepted in the new congregation.*Ellison Research (Phoenix, Ariz.) ellisonresearch.com/PublicStudies.htm16IN PART≥ take part in the conversation with the 15 other pastors who respondedto these questions by visiting IN PART ONLINE at INPART.ORG.