{Many Questions and Few Answers Along the Never-Finished Journey of Faith}
What if Membership Vows Are Not Enough???
“As you join 1st Downtown UMC, we have to ask you this question: Will you support this church with your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and your witness?”
Maybe you’ve heard or even said something along those lines at the end of a worship service when someone (or even a few someones) take the long walk down the aisle at the end of worship during the final verse of a hymn. As the hymn ends you may have heard your pastor (or maybe you are the pastor) announce to the congregation the addition of a new member to the congregation. These vows are merely the formality of what promises to be a life-long loyalty to the church.
But what does that even mean?…
We’re in the midst of a 50+ year decline in membership in The United Methodist Church. There’s a growing market for curriculum designed to educate new and prospective members. I’ve recently conducted a very unscientific poll through social media and word of mouth. Among those who responded to me, the majority of churches who use a teaching model for new members generally set it up with a trajectory towards the membership vows — prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. I wonder if we’re in the business of making disciples, then should we root discipleship in the membership vows of the local church?
What if Discipleship Requires More?
One of the frustrations with imagining a church that makes disciples might be found in the fact that we set people up to be members and not disciples. The truth is our membership vows are essentially individualistic in nature. Membership vows convey the importance to support the local church through showing up, helping others, and even inviting others to join you in doing these things. But is this what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ journeying together towards salvation?
For John Wesley, the journey of faith was one that required sojourners to move towards entire sanctification — being perfected in love through grace. Wesley believed faith was a means to radically transform your life physically, spiritually, emotionally, and even economically.
Hear from Mr. Wesley himself:
“It is thus that we wait for entire sanctification; for a full salvation from all our sins, from pride, self-will, anger, unbelief; or, as the Apostle expresses it, “go on unto perfection.” But what is perfection? The word has various senses: Here it means perfect love. It is love excluding sin; love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul. It is love “rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in every thing giving thanks.”
–from Sermon #43 “The Scripture Way of Salvation”
“Well, but what more than this can be implied in entire sanctification?” It does not imply any new kind of holiness: Let no man imagine this. From the moment we are justified, till we give up our spirits to God, love is the fulfilling of the law; of the whole evangelical law… Love is the sum of Christian sanctification; it is the one kind of holiness, which is found, only in various degrees”
–from Sermon #83 “On Patience”
“Entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, is neither more nor less than pure love; love expelling sin, and governing both the heart and life of a child of God.”
–from A Letter to Walter Churchey (June 26, 1788)
Therefore while it’s important we uphold our local churches as places where life-changing ministry can happen, we should root a ministry of disciple-formation in something deeper than our membership vows. If discipleship is to mean anything significant in The United Methodist Church, we need to encourage something more that just being loyal and paying dues to a local church.
Using Our Baptismal Vows as a Basis for Discipleship
When was the last time you’ve heard about your baptismal vows outside of the context of witnessing a baptism? Let’s review them:
1. Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
2. Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
3. Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?
When our membership vows become the basis for discipleship, then the requirements of discipleship get scaled down to fit the local church. Ministry becomes defined solely as what happens within the local church instead of a lifestyle we embody for having been a part of the church. Service eventually becomes synonymous with volunteering instead of self-giving. Giving becomes a local dues paying system instead of a tangible sign of a spiritual sacrifice.
Our baptismal vows up the ante on what it means to be Christian. It moves our faith from the local church and into a whole-life approach to faith. After all, this is what a sending forth means at the end of Sunday worship.
Renouncing spiritual forces of wickedness, rejecting evil, and repenting of sin requires the local body but it means more than merely participating in local ministry. Accepting the freedom and power God gives to resist evil, injustice, and oppression requires the presence of a local body but it means our perspective on faith is anything but local. And confessing Jesus Christ as Lord in union with the Church Christ has opened to all nations, races, and ages reminds us that while we’re apart of a particular local body, we are also strengthened as part of the Church in all times and places. The cosmic significance of this cannot be understated.
What Can We Do Now?
If our baptismal vows are to become a part of the collective vernacular of our local churches we need to do a few things:
- Teach them. Lead a small group centered around the baptismal covenant. Follow the flow of the order to structure the flow of the class. Begin with a discussion on the nature of salvation. Move to the vows themselves. And then talk about what it means to be in ministry in the local church in light of these demanding vows.
- Preach on them. If you’re preaching on discipleship, then make sure you include these vows as a primary basis for your preaching. The good news is we don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to discipleship. Use the vows at your disposal and even invite worshippers to turn to the page in the hymnal where they can find them or project them on a screen for all to read and follow along. The vows will preach, I promise.
- Organize discipling groups that use these vows on a regular basis. Have groups write covenants together using these baptismal vows as a base for how they order their lives together. Discipling one another means watching over each other in mutual love and accountability. If discipleship is to become a part of the local DNA of our congregations, then we need to provide structural means whereby persons can disciple one another.
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Ben
I completely agree about the importance of the baptismal vows. In fact, the membership/discipleship class I am writing and teaching this fall focuses a large amount of time on those baptismal vows and how they are foundational in our understanding of the membership vows (prayers, presences, etc…)
Great post!
It seems to me that, before we get to the question of whether membership vows are enough, it might be worthwhile to ask, “What if the membership vows were actually kept?” What if we acted as though we took them seriously? What if we actually expected all members to pray and taught them about prayer? What if we actually counseled members whose attendance was spotty? What if we actually let folks know that we expected them to tithe and provided financial management classes to help them get their finances in order? What if we actually expected every member to serve in the church somewhere and asked those unwilling to do so to find a different fellowship? What if we actually told members that we expected them to witness and gave them the tools to do so? What if we told people that they could not join the church until they brought another candidate for membership with them? We can set the standards as high and as deep as we like. But so long as we don’t act as though we really mean it, it will make little difference. Taking the membership vows seriously, would be a good place to start. The fault is not with our standards, I fear; but with us! In most cases we expect nothing and are surprised when that is all we get.
Even if membership vows are kept, what are we doing in terms of renouncing and repenting of sin, accepting the freedom and grace to reject evil and injustice, and living as though we confess Jesus as Lord? The lack I see is that a 100% focus on membership vows, while very important, do little in terms of Wesleyan holiness. There’s a big difference between what I named above and “participating in the ministries of the church.” I’m not rejecting the importance of membership but I am saying that it’s possible to keep those vows faithfully and still be a nominal Christian not “moving on towards perfection.”
Thanks for your post and challenging thoughts!!
I don’t disagree that membership should come with expectations. I had the fantastic experience of stepping outside of the UMC for a few years to be a member in a non-denominational church with high expectations (mission, tithe, regular attendance and participation in worship, regular scripture and prayer, small group participation). I think that in addition to the expectations of the candidate for baptism or membership, we have to look at the commitment that we make as a community to that person. When we commit to “surround these persons with a community of love and forgiveness that they may grow in their trust of God and be found faithful in their service to others…” we’re also making a commitment about our own discipleship that needs to be upheld. I’m actually working on an effort now to revitalize bapstismal vows for the whole church…and I’d love to be in dialogue with those interested. I’ve been called back to the UMC for this work.
Laura,
You are absolutely right about our need to provide communal support and discipling to people who are baptized or unite with us in membership. The Lord called me to account in that area about a year ago and I have tried to do at least one thing to support the growth in grace of every person baptized in our United Methodist church. It may be a good idea to improve the baptismal vows for the entire church; but I believe that much more could be done for the Kingdom if we simply took the current vows seriously. What would happen if every member of a church asked himself or herself, “If Jesus asked me to list what I had really done to keep this vow of support to the church family member being baptized, how would I answer?” It would be interesting to survey United Methodist church congregation members and ask them what they promised at the last baptism. Do you honestly think more than 1 in a 100 could tell you? Sadly, there is little value in improving a vow that is not really taken seriously. Until we start actually taking these vows seriously, revising them is a vain exercise.
To be clear John, I am not an advocate for any change in the vows, but for actually using them. I think maybe I have been misunderstood.
Laura,
I apologize if I gave offense. Certainly we have the same objectives of making disciples. There just seem to be so many times when we distract ourselves because it is easier to propose enhancements to a process than to follow the process and to expect others to. As Chesterton put it, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not been tired.” Do we have the courage to be accountable and to hold others accountable to what we have in place?
Ben,
Thanks for this.
Local church vows do not, of themselves, comprise the vows for professing membership in The United Methodist Church. Professing members, whether they come from within the UMC or from other denominations, must first be baptized in water in the name of the Triune God and then take all of the vows prescribed in paragraph 217– starting with all of the baptismal vows, and including the statements about belief in the Trinity, loyalty to Christ through the UMC and then, also, the vows for local church membership. Paragraph 225 was revised slightly in 2008 to make it clearer that all of these vows comprise the standard for all who seek to join us as professing members, including those who come to us from other denominations.
I’d love to see the bulletin blurb reading, “New Discipleship Group Starting Tuesday! Will discuss baptismal vows. Bring chips.”
Seems to me that any Christian group is gathered by the Spirit, and simply trying to organize a group (at least as a pastor or leader) without Divine aid and some seriously dedicated folks who will be in and support such a group is an exercise in futility.
[...] you stop by this blog often, you’ll remember that I wrote a post last week advocating the idea that in order to form a culture of discipleship in the local church, we should [...]
So there are churches that don’t use the baptismal vows as part of their new member liturgy?!!! I always thought that the “I do, I do, I do, I will” was a given regardless of whether or not baptism was part of the new member reception. I can’t imagine just asking the “Will you give us money and sign up on our volunteer clipboards?” question.