Non Attending Members

Weekly Update – August 1st, 2024

During our members’ meeting last Sunday, there was a lot of discussion about what it looks like to remove non-attending members from membership.  Ten years ago, we had 2200 members connected to our church.  Since then, we have removed those who have passed away and those who we are unable to contact.  That amounted to around 1400 members.  Now we are in the process of removing members we have contact information for but who have not been with us in a number of years.  In the meantime, the elders are also bringing before you more recent cases of members who stopped attending but that we have had contact with and have asked them to rejoin us.  Those on this list have been brought before the church to be contacted by anyone who knows them, with the aim of calling them back into the fellowship of the body of Christ.  For those who still refuse to return and will not pursue attendance at any other church, they will be brought up for removal.  The question I want to answer for you this week is, why?

To answer this question, we need to back up a bit. Lets define what a church actually is.  Here is the definition I often share in our Membership Matters class:  A local church is a body of people who have been redeemed by God’s grace, through their faith in Jesus Christ, who are committed together to glorify God through serving each other and through witnessing Christ to the world.  To live out this commitment to one another, this body assembles together regularly (Heb. 10:24-27) to hear the preached word of God (1 Tim. 4:13), partake of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17-34), witness baptism, submit to church leaders (Heb. 13:4), fulfill the many one another commands of Scripture and affirm each other’s faith in Jesus Christ (Matt. 18:18-20). That means then that a church member is someone who commits to a local church and places themselves under the accountability of the body as the church affirms their faith in Christ and provides oversight to their discipleship and growth in Jesus Christ. 

With that in mind there is a great sense of responsibility given to a church member.  If a church is committed to glorifying God through serving each other and witnessing Christ to the world then this body of believers must ensure that those who are attached to it are in fact living in accordance to the church’s confession of Jesus Christ.  This is why Scripture outlines what we call church discipline, specifically seen in Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. As Christians we are to live a life that seeks to continually repent of sin.  If a member appears to embrace their sin as a lifestyle instead of repenting from it, the church is called to act.  After much patience through the first three steps, the final step of discipline is to revoke a person’s church membership.  Primarily this means that they are no longer welcome to take the Lord’s Supper and are no longer able to participate in certain ministries given only to church members (leading, serving in certain ministries, voting at members’ meetings).  Depending on the nature of the sin, they are still welcome to attend and in fact are encouraged to come to church, so that they may hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, turn from their sin and be reconciled back to Christ and to the church.

The question is, how does non-attendance fit with discipline?    

To answer this question, we have to go back how the church is displayed.  If the church is displayed through a local body of Christ assembling together to hear the word of God preached, partake of the Lord’s Supper, witness baptism, submit to church leaders, fulfill the one another commands from Scripture and affirm each other’s faith, then that means without the assembly, there is no visible church. Hebrews 10:24-27 is clear that believers are not to forsake the assembling together as the church.  Even still, there is more.  In addition to not being present, a member of a local church who refuses to attend is neglecting all of the one another commands given to the church body to fulfill.  Such commands include, singing together (Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19), teaching one another (Col. 3:16), bearing each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:2) and submitting to one another (Eph. 5:21).  Not only do the Scriptures command us to live in community this way, but our church covenant also details a similar life for members of the church.  Therefore, not only is a non-attending member harming their own spiritual walk, but they are also negatively affecting their fellow brothers and sisters within the church as well as bringing disrepute upon the witness of the church as a whole.  So then is continual, deliberate non-attendance sin?  Yes. Should members who live refusing to attend the church they have covenanted with be pursued.  Yes. Should those who neglect to heed the calls of the church to return to the body be removed.  Yes. 

As I said on Sunday, the issue here isn’t how many times a person has missed Sunday morning worship.  Additionally, there are extenuating circumstances that would prevent someone from attending.  Shut ins, surgeries and work schedules are just a few.  By no means should we remove someone who wants to worship with the body of Christ but is unable.  Instead, the issue is where a person’s heart is when it comes to gathering with God’s people.  Do they have a desire to worship the Lord corporately?  Do they desire to build up the body of Christ by being present?  Do they long to bear the burdens of fellow church members?  Do they seek after the word of God preached?  The answers to these questions will show themselves through the priority placed upon gathering with the local church and fulfilling the obligations given through membership.  If the answers are yes, then you will see efforts made to gather with the body of Christ whenever it is physically possible.  If the answers are no, then we as a church have the responsibility to pursue them, call them to repentance, and pray that they might be restored to our local body.  If they refuse our pleas, then the burden is further upon the church to remove them for their sake, the sake of other members, and even more, the sake of the display of the glory of Jesus Christ through his church. 

Serving Him with You,
Pastor Michael Nelson