"WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MEMBER"

Good Afternoon to All!

I really had not intended to post this so early, but evidently I accidentally clicked publish instead of save! LOL! Anyway, tonight, what you see is what you get! LOL!.

Do you believe Christians should be a member of a church? This is a question which Courtney at "Faithful Bloggers" put to "her members"as a Faithful Blogging prompt to blog about. So I now ask you.

I will give my own opinion and reasons for the choice I've made, and then I am hopeful that you will comment back to me on what your opinions are on this subject.

I truly have MIXED feelings on this subject. I do think that people make too big of an issue whether you are a "member or not". I say this because when I was wanting to get married for the second time, I couldn't find a church to get married in, let alone a preacher who would do it, so I had to get a Justice of the Peace to perform the ceremony and we got married in my "then , to-be mother-in-law's house. This was back in 1980. My present marriage was the same, except my brother-in-law allowed us to "use" his church, just that he wouldn't perform the ceremony, so we were married in a church by a Justice of the Peace once again. There were two reasons given for this denial. First, because I had been divorced, and then because I wasn't a "member of their church.

I guess it wasn't a very "Christian attitude" on my part, but my reaction to their reasons was "well, that isn't a very good way to make people want to visit your church and become a member either!"

I feel like as long as we "go to church", I don't think God cares whether we are members or not. My personal feelings about that are that being a member is for "business purposes only". Being a member entitles a person to vote on business matters of the church. Being a member, is being held to a higher standard and helping out in all areas of the church such as fund raisers, cleaning, receptions and so forth.

Yes, we should want to do that anyway, but at the same time I think members are "EXPECTED" to do so.

The way I figure it is God wants us to have a Personal Relationship with Him, in church and out of church. He says "do not forsake the assembling of yourselves, meaning go to church. He does not say you have to be a member of this Baptist, Methodist or Pentecostal church. HIS doctrine in the only one that counts.

According to His word we are supposed to follow HIS DOCTRINE and no other. The only place we will find that doctrine is in the Bible. Yes, we are suppose to go to church and be taught by our "shepherds", but we are also suppose to read His word for ourselves because there are so many "false preachers" out there, we need to make sure for ourselves that the preacher is preaching what is in line with the Word of God. (Which some do not).

It does not take a "church membership" to do that. Yes, I am a member of the church I attend, but if I ever stop being a member, for example if I don't end up following our bylaws for example of not attending regularly or something like that (if we start traveling more), then it won't bother me and I'm sure I will be just as loved by my church family as I am right at this moment. I attend a wonderful and loving church and I rather doubt if I would be taken from the role because of something like that, unless I did something horrible that would embarrass the church in the public eye, and that I would definitely understand.

I enjoy having a say in what goes on, but I don't think my one little vote would make that much difference.

I looked and looked for some reference verses in the Bible about "church membership" but of course, the only church I read about being a "member" of was the "Body of Christ", and We ALL should be members of that church.

This being said it is obvious that this is ALL only my opinion, as I said I could find no reference to belonging to a specific church except the main one.

Have a Wonderful Evening and a fun but SAFE Memorial Holiday!

I couldn't figure out how to do a background to be able to show the white print, so I made it as light as I could but still be able to see it. It is supposed to be Memorial Holiday! If anyone knows how to change the color of the background for just this one area I would appreciate the knowledge.