Membership in the local church is increasingly seen as optional for Christians. Some churches don’t practice membership at all.
There are two primary ideas associated with this idea of optional membership, both of which undermine the local congregation. The first is the notion that a person’s spiritual health is not dependent on gathering with other believers. In this view, someone can be Christian without attending corporate worship or Bible study regularly with the same group of believers, or without attending at all. The second is the idea that even if a believer is attending in some fashion, he need not be formally joined to that congregation through membership. In other words, she doesn’t need to be on a list of “members” to satisfy the communal aspects of her faith.
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