What does church membership mean?

Age helps determine
how worshipers view
joining congregations

Craig Duncan sings with the praise team during the New Heights contemporary worship service at Alamo Heights UMC, San Antonio. But he isn’t officially a member of the church. Duncan says he hasn’t had time to take a required membership class.

























By Rachel L. Toalson
Staff Writer
Every week for the past two years, Jeff Anderson has placed his money into the offering box at Alamo Heights UMC, San Antonio.
Nearly every week, the 26-year-old, who grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, plays guitar for the worship team at New Heights, the congregation’s contemporary worship service.
But Anderson has never officially joined the Alamo Heights congregation.
There are many like him.
Craig Duncan sings on the same worship team at the New Heights service. He and his wife have been attending and tithing to Alamo Heights for about two and a half years. They have never found time to take the membership class that all new people must complete before joining the congregation, he said.
Over the past decade, membership in The United Methodist Church has become a cloudy issue for many people who attend—particularly younger worshipers.
Some have no idea what membership means. Others believe it’s a ploy to add more numbers to an already numbers-conscious church.
Many don’t see any reason for joining or personal benefit. That’s the case with Anderson.
“I know it’s important in the church to have members who are in the books,” he said. “But New Heights benefits from me and my wife. We’re every bit as involved as if we were members.
“Unless someone could explain the reality of becoming a ‘member’ to me more succinctly, I want to make sure I do it for the right reasons.”





Membership has long history
Historically, the church has always had some form of official membership requirement in place, said the Rev. Ted A. Campbell, associate professor of church history at Southern Methodist University.
During the early Methodist movement, the membership requirement was simply a “sincere desire to flee from the wrath that is to come and be saved from one’s sins,” Campbell said. To be a continuing member, Methodists had to follow the general rules still listed in the United Methodist Book of Discipline: Avoid evil, do good and obey God’s ordinances.
In the early 19th century, when the Methodist movement became a church, the condition for joining the organization remained the same, Campbell said. But people had to take a membership class and go before the entire congregation to profess their faith.
During that period, probationary membership was added, Campbell said. Members would be tested for three to six months to make sure they would keep God’s ordinances.
The rigid structure began to break down in the late 19th century, when class structures began to dissipate, Campbell said. Probationary membership was dropped, and in the early 20th century the only membership requirement became a simple profession of Christian faith.
Campbell said he thinks The United Methodist Church has been strengthening membership requirements since the 1980s.
“We have tougher requirements than we did before,” he said. “People now are a lot more serious. Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, to be a Methodist was sort of a social thing. But a lot of churches are now taking it more seriously.”

Generational views shift
United Methodist leaders know that different generations perceive church membership very differently.
The Rev. William J. Abraham, Albert C. Outler professor of Wesley studies at SMU, said the younger generation is “tired of wishy-washy commitment” and “looking for more meat.” The generation of the 1950s wanted to “get out from underneath the dogmatism and narrowness of the other period.”
“Even the graduate students here (at SMU) are tired of membership,” Abraham said. “They want to belong to a community that stands for something. People are tired of cafeteria or credit card Christianity.”
The Rev. Tina Carter, pastor of The Rock UMC, Cedar Park, has long studied the generational differences and has developed her own theories.
Baby Boomers—people born from 1946 to 1964—assume that “place” is where they are, Carter said. Generation Xers—people born from 1965 to 1980—demand that one make “the place” where they are. Generation Y—people born from 1980 to 1994—isn’t really sure what “place” means.
“So you have people asking entirely different questions,” Carter said. “If I have a Generation Xer who shows up to the church three or more times, he thinks he’s a member of the church.
“If someone came from a family background where they went to church, they know that they make a decision to become a member. But an outsider to the church has no idea what church membership is.”
Differing perceptions make it difficult for pastors to educate potential members and often contribute to attendees being counted as members long before they officially join the congregation, Carter added.
Associate Pastor J. Ryan Barnett of University UMC, San Antonio, said the younger generation is simply looking for significance.
“They’re not as interested in a country club mentality when joining a church,” he said. “They’re interested in the ways in which it will change their lives. If it doesn’t appear that it’s going to, then they’re not interested.
“Younger people don’t join churches out of obligation or a sense of duty or because it’s expected. Those days seem to be passing. We’ve moved past that culturally. The church is most attractive when we’re raising the expectation levels, when we’re expecting a lot of people.”
Barnett, who leads University’s contemporary service, said he’s had about 500 young people join his church in the last two years.
Associate Pastor Michael Crocker, who leads the New Heights service at Alamo Heights, said younger people aren’t as concerned with joining the church as their parents.
“Getting involved and being involved with a small group, coming to service— that’s more important than saying they belong to a church,” Crocker said.
“The younger generation has more fluidity to it. We don’t necessarily want to be tied down with a label. A lot of the younger people we have in our congregation didn’t grow up Methodist. They believe what we believe, but they’re not here because we’re Methodist. They’re here because they’re meeting God.”
The Rev. Bradley Dehaven, senior pastor of St. Andrew’s UMC, San Antonio, has begun workshops at his church about the many generational differences he sees.
“It’s been eye-opening, to say the least,” Dehaven said. “For a lot of the folks here who believe that the generational gap is insurmountable—a chasm that’s un-crossable—I’ve been sharing with them that that’s not the case.”

Expectations cause problems
The Rev. J. Jason Fry, senior pastor of First UMC, Victoria, said generations respond differently to the perceptions of church membership that church leaders have.
United Methodists have come to accept that about one-third of the membership attends worship each week, Fry said.
“We think that’s typical,” Fry said. “We think if we have half what the membership is in worship, great revival is going on.
“My philosophy is we expect nothing or little, and that’s what we get.”
Dehaven said the church has failed in a way.
“The younger generations want to be a part of change and transformation,” Dehaven said. “They’re hungry, but the church is not feeding them, so they’re looking in places besides the church.
“They look at membership as ‘Big deal. You put my name in a book.’ It has no value or credence to them because their name is only in a book. We, as a church, have allowed that to happen. We don’t carry membership around in the same sacred way.”
The Rev. Jason Teague, pastor of First UMC, Goliad, said membership requirements could be part of the problem—particularly when new members have to stand in front of the entire congregation.
“Professing our faith and membership in Christ, coming up to the front of the church, that makes a lot of folks uncomfortable,” he said. “Most people just want to quietly work behind the scenes. They don’t want people to make a big fuss about them.
“Maybe, on some level, we have a cultural fear of commitment.”
Duncan, who was reared a Presbyterian, said the membership class and the time it requires are all that has kept him and his wife from joining the Alamo Heights congregation.
“It’s just a question of going into the office and getting the paperwork,” he said. “We have no mental roadblock. It’s just we have both been so busy that we haven’t done it. And, truthfully, we’ve been able to get by without being members. Circumstances haven’t forced us to become members.”

Membership offers benefits
Duncan knows that not taking the step of membership has hindered him and his wife from becoming fully connected.
“Being part of something is jumping in with all feet, wearing that little badge that says ‘I’m a member,’” he said.
In Goliad, First UMC is involved in a building campaign. Teague noted that members have a voice in what’s being built and other congregational decisions. Nonmembers aren’t allowed to vote at charge conferences.
“At least in the decision-making process, (membership) gives people one more opportunity to participate in the life and ministry of the church in which they’re involved,” Teague said.
“And there is something to be said for formalizing that commitment. It’s why we stand at the front of a church when we get married. It helps us solidify the commitment. Otherwise, we can drift in and out.”
University UMC, San Antonio, which has close to 6,000 members, expects all members to do eight hours of mission service annually, Barnett said—because membership has important value to the leadership within the church.
Though the Bible has no specific guidelines about church membership, Barnett said he thinks membership provides a biblical model of how Jesus would expect Christians to interact.
“Membership is a community and an individual entering into a covenant of commitment to hold each other accountable,” he said. “By becoming a member, you are publicly professing to the community that you’re a believer in Jesus Christ and that you have a commitment to live within the corporate expectations of Christ.
“Our connection to Christ is intensely intimate and personal. Our identity in Christ as a disciple, biblically, is only lived out in connection with the body. The local church is an expression of the body of Jesus Christ. Being a part of Christ’s body will grow us ever more into his likeness. That’s an important thing.”
Kyle Brown, 33, and his wife, Danielle, attended University UMC’s contemporary service for several years before taking the step of membership.
When they finally did, Brown said their level of commitment to the church rose almost immediately.
Before becoming members, the couple would attend church once or twice a month—particularly on holidays or whenever their schedule permitted.
“Becoming a member is an important step because if you’re not a member, you have a tendency to not be a part of that particular body,” Brown said. “You go here and you go there. I didn’t feel like I was ever a part of the whole body. But once we joined, we were able to pour ourselves into the church.”

Higher commitment urged
Fry said he believes the church needs to require better prerequisite classes before membership.
In seminary, Fry studied a teaching church that had a membership of 1,200 and an attendance of 3,000. The church offered a 12-week class every quarter. Leaders taught about stewardship, commitment to tithing, gifts and ministries in which people could participate.
Fry said he had stopped giving open invitations to become a member of his Victoria congregation, offering instead a four-week class every quarter.
The teaching church checked regularly to see if members were attending and whether they were giving regularly, he noted.
“We’re scared of that,” Fry said. “We’re scared to ask people for that commitment. But these high-demand churches—they’re the ones that are growing. I think that relates to the generation question in a different way. If you present people with a challenge, they’ll take it.
“Some people think young people don’t want to make a commitment, but I don’t believe that. They don’t want to make a commitment that is meaningless. That’s the key.”
Abraham agreed.
“If churches say this is a serious commitment and then give potential members the resources that will enable them to keep the commitment, this thing might work,” the professor said. “The paradox is the higher the demand, the greater the intensity of commitment and the more attractive it can become in a blurred and confusing world.”
The concept of membership, if understood correctly, has the potential to change the face of America, Carter said.
“People in our country don’t know what community is anymore,” she said. “They don’t know how to be vulnerable anymore. Membership is critical for these generations.
“The church has a responsibility. Membership, especially when people are educated about what it means, can be a transformational force in the country to get the concept of community back in our vocabulary.”