– Guest blogger R. Jason Pickard –

In our day and age church membership seems to have been down played by most. In college all I had to do to join my church was walk down the aisle, assure them I had been baptized the proper way, sign a sheet of paper, and be introduced to the congregation. No one really even made sure my profession of faith was credible. No one explained to me the importance of the local church either. I guess most, in our anti-authoritarian culture, would say they have no right to give those who desire membership a more thorough examination. As long as I say I am a Christian that is good enough, right? If I am pressed to say more, well than I will just go down the street and join the other church that does not get too personal.

However, Church membership is no small thing. It is very important, in fact vital to Christianity. I believe this because the Church holds the keys to the Kingdom of God. Now, this is important because if you want entrance into a place that is locked, you must have the keys that unlock the door. If you want into the Kingdom of God, you better go to the Church because she holds the keys. What are these keys of the Kingdom? The Heidelberg Catechism, question 83, answers, “The preaching of the holy gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance (are the keys). Both preaching and discipline open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers.” (For the sake of space I will not quote questions 84 and 85, but I refer you to there for further clarification of how preaching and discipline open and close the Kingdom.)

St. Augustine went so far as to say that there is no ordinary possibility of salvation outside of the Church. The Westminster Divines also believed this and so set it forth in Chapter 25 of their great Confession. Further, Augustine, Cyprian, and Calvin all said that you cannot have God as your Father unless you have the Church as your mother. Why is this so important?—because the Gospel has been entrusted to the Church. Along with this, I believe we need to rediscover a sacramental theology—not one of mechanical efficacy, but one that truly believes God is present and strengthens us by faith in the Holy Sacraments. What is baptism but entrance into the Church? What is the Eucharist but a meeting in which, by faith, God meets with us and strengthens our faith? What is preaching but to hear the very words of Christ (see Romans 10:14, if you read the ESV, be sure to read the footnote alternate translation). What is Church discipline but a call to repent and turn again to Christ?

These things are found nowhere else. However good and valid a para-chruch organization might be, however wise and mature your friends, they have not been entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of God. I would suggest that we read the Reformers on the Church but that we would also glean from all ages of the Church as we think about the Doctrine of the Church and the practical implications. Read the historic creeds, read Calvin, and Luther, and Bucer, and Cramner, and the Westminster Divines and I think you will find a Doctrine of the Church much different than that of most American evangelicals. And if these ideas, presented here and in Church history, sound too Roman Catholic to you, remember that the Reformers and Westminster Divines were anti Roman Catholic! We need to take Church membership very seriously because the Church is where we find grace. Be active in the life of your Church, yes serve where there is need, but even more be a regular and active participator in the worship—prayers, hymns, the preaching of the Word, discipline, baptism, and Holy Communion.

John Williamson Nevin wrote these words in regards to the Doctrine of the Church in the Apostle’s Creed:

The Church, in the Creed, stands out manifestly as the connecting medium between all that goes before and all that follows after. The grace which starts in Christ’s birth, and flows onward through his life, his death upon the cross, his descent to hades, his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of God, and the sending of the of the Holy Ghost, is the same that then discharges its full stream into the bosom of the Church, and that is poured forth from this again in the benefits of redemption, from the remission of sins onward to the life everlasting. Beyond all question, the Creed means to affirm the being of the Church, as in indispensable link in the scheme of salvation, and as something not accidental merely but essential to the constitution of Christianity.

Much more could be said, but may our membership in the invisible Church express itself in faithful membership of a faithful local church, because outside of the Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.