To be a Christian, do I have to be a member of an organized church?

No, but church community can nurture faith in God

Doug Heacock, contemporary worship leader, Lawrence Free Methodist Church, 31st and Lawrence Ave.:

Membership in a church is not a requirement for becoming a Christian. In fact, believing in Christ makes you a member of his church, the universal body of Christ-followers around the world and through the ages, irrespective of denomination. Belonging to a local church body is another matter.

I don’t believe you’ll find in the New Testament a quote from Jesus instructing his followers to join an organized church (although he mentions the church in Matthew 16:18), but it is difficult to read the New Testament without concluding that the apostles believed Jesus wanted them to build local church communities wherever they went. The apostles taught that the church is the “body of Christ” in the world, representing Christ and doing his work until his future return.

Can one be a Christian and not participate in a local church? There are, to be sure, some in the monastic tradition who have been able to develop a close relationship with God in isolation, but this is not the norm, and it is difficult to imagine, particularly in our time, how one can flourish and grow in the faith apart from a healthy community of fellow believers.

This sort of question often comes from people who have had negative experiences with a particular local church or who may never have experienced the life of a healthy church. While there are, unfortunately, too many unhealthy churches, the local church at its best is a community in which faith is nurtured, where lives are transformed and where people have opportunity to participate in ministry and encounter the living God.

Send e-mail to Doug Heacock at dheacock@lfmchurch.org.

Life of faith lived through participation in the body

Bob Leiste, pastor, Redeemer Lutheran Church, 2700 Lawrence Ave.:

For me, this question is not “How am I saved?” but instead “How do I live as a person of faith?”

For that answer, I look to the Book of Acts for the model of Christian life God provides through his word. From Acts, I learn that early Christians gathered together to be taught, to teach, to pray, to break bread, to help one another, to have fellowship, to do outreach, to find discipline and to provide physical support for each other.

These believers soon became organized so the work of God could be done by and through his believers, called the church. When missionaries went out, they formed churches. I get the sense these people saw themselves as members of a body called the church, whose head was Jesus Christ. They were not perfect in living out the faith, yet they worked at it. In addition, each one of them was needed, and each was — through this church — cared for and fed on the word and Sacraments by the head of the church, Christ Jesus. God knew in his wisdom that the church would not survive with a go-it-alone mentality, let alone fulfill the Great Commission to go into the world and make disciples in the name of Jesus.

The biblical answer, to me, is yes — a person of faith lives out the life of faith in and through the church. Now, one might say, “I do not have to go to church to believe.” Yet that is not the question. Perhaps the best response might be from James, who addressed how Christians need to live out their lives of faith: “Show me your faith; I will show you my faith by what I do” (2:18) — both for the family of faith called the church and for the world.

Send e-mail to Bob Leiste at raleiste@yahoo.com.