Membership

Pop's recent comment on membership and his (rightful) insistence that the Church should be (is!) the bride of Christ has prompted this post... about experiences of joining and belonging to a membership-type church.

'On the pull'

It's a curious experience turning up a new church, particularly if you have an inkling that it might be one you want to attend regularly. It involves eyeing people up, checking out the oddballs, feeling out the vibes, pricing up the wares. If we're very shallow (I am) I'm interested in what's on the surface (the music, the P.A., the cardigans...)... if we're trying to be more spiritual we try to get a feel for what's going on underneath... It bears an uncommon resemblance to the habits of our pagan brothers who go "on the pull" to "night clubs"... We're so deep!


I wonder what would happen if - when we saw a new couple turn up at the church - we stuck our hands in fin shapes on our heads and shouted 'Shark'...

Anyway, after a few sermons, a lunch invitation, perhaps a church weekend, a prayer meeting or two... a 'special worship Sunday'... you start to feel like this could be church for the moment... it might even be the Home church... The courting period is over... now it's time to meet the parents in law...


'The parents in law'

This is the scary bit... It shouldn't be, it should be joyous and wonderful, like when you fall in love with someone and it's so obvious that it helps her parents overcome their initial reticence and adopt you into their family... But, actually, it's a lot more like asking for someone's hand in marriage. There's that awful moment where you have to strip your soul bare and ask 'the question'... and accept that, despite having known you for the last 2 years, they might suddenly decide that when push comes to shove, you're good enough, or sincere enough, or safe enough... and say 'no'.

For a church, this stage usually involves an 'official visit' of some form - which often involves people with whom you might have already been on holiday, who have possibly cried on your shoulder, and who you've been drinking with in the pub for at least 6 months and who know your in-depth views on the whys and wherefores of nearly everything under the sun, putting on special cardigans and coming to check you out. Alternatively, the church might make a point of sending around people who you don't know and have nothing in common with for an uncomfortable hour or two. It's rather like asking your parents in law if you can marry their daughter, and them sending around the local headmaster and the chairman of the allotments society because they like you too much to trust themselves to make a rational decision.

At this point, it pays to be as careful as possible what evidence you make available for consideration... Some friends of ours were joining a pretty traditional church just at the time that I'd lent them some books by a fairly well-known liberal theologian. They just happened to be sitting in the bookcase alongside their season sets of 24 and Prison Break and CDs by well-known worship leaders - but they were spotted immediately by the visiting Pastor who thought (and I quote) "Ah, we could be in for a bit of trouble here"... again, we're so deep!

The difficulty of 'a trial separation'

You've jumped through the membership hoops, joined up, paid your subs, attended the meetings... got your membership card and learned the secret password so you can read members' only correspondence (this is scarily accurate), turned up on voluntary Saturdays, suffered the vagaries of the flower rota and otherwise demonstrated utter faithfulness to the church in question... You might even have got married in the church... now, for whatever reason, you need a period of trial separation. Actually, in our case, this is more a question that we needed to move for work, and weren't sure if or when we'd be returning...

However, here, you find that unless you return licketty spit, or quickly join another church 'on the rebound' (interesting that you can transfer your membership within the same demoninational... sorry... freudian slip... denominational cabal) ... lo and behold, before too long, the church lawyers are on the case asking for a 'divorce'. The reason give us was that too many absent members mess with the quorum (defn: a minimum number of members in an assembly, society, board of directors, etc., required to be present before any valid business can be transacted) at church meetings, making them much more difficult to achieve an effective decision.

Now, I'm all for absolute democracy... but I have to say, when the secretary of your church writes and suggests (albeit reluctantly) that you might like to withdraw your membership because the fact that you're not physically there gets in the way of church business rules... it hurts rather.

... and then, when you come back... you have to go through the whole palaver all over again, just in case you've changed your fundamental beliefs in the meantime... (we had actually, but that's rather besides the point).

'Confused frowns'

Last, but not least, there's the issue of what to do with the oddness of all of the above, when you're actually in a membership-type church... most of which is met with confused frowns

For example, do you challenge it with the membership, as a member?
- "Heh, heh... dissolve the membership... that's funny... it's a good thing you're joking... oh, you're not?" *confused frown*

Do you embody the challenge and chose to give up your membership, either staying within the church, or continuing to believe - whilst belonging to more than one church?
- "Why are you leaving the church?... you're not?... but you won't be able to attend the members' meetings or vote... don't you care about what happens here?" *confused frown*

Do you side with, or against (or are you deeply, caringly neutral towards) others who also wrestle and come to a different conclusion or the church that let them go?
- "XYZ left the church of their own accord... why are you angry?" *confused frowns*
- "XYZ left the church... why aren't you angry?" *confused frowns*

Or do we simply accept that it's the nature of the beast, and start putting on smart cardigans and visiting our wives and children to see if they are also worthy of being members of our earthly family...

*confused frowns*