This Is Not Belonging

An Autopsy of Membership

This is the fourth in a series of autopsies.

The first examined the table: This Is Not a Feast. The second examined the sermon: This Is Not Teaching. The third examined professional ministers: This Is Not a Profession.

This one examines membership.

They are not isolated failures.

They are one tangled system.

---

Our very first visit to the church began like most first visits do. We sat, we sang, we listened. Nothing unusual. Pleasant, even.

After the service, as we stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, we were approached by a man I would later come to know as an elder. Not a greeter. Not a host. Something else. If you’ve seen The Firm, imagine Wilford Brimley’s character. That energy. Calm. Direct. Unsmiling.

He wanted to know our background. Where we came from.

When I mentioned another church in the area, his attention sharpened. Why were we no longer there? Had we “made things right”? Were matters resolved?

This was our first conversation. On a sidewalk. After a single service. We had no idea what he was referring to.

He instructed us to return to where we came from and fix whatever needed fixing before we could be here.

At the time, it felt… good. Responsible. Like someone was guarding something sacred. Gatekeeping, but holy. Serious people doing serious spiritual work.

We left impressed.

---

The slow reveal

Twelve months later, I was invited to lunch with the senior pastor.

Pleasantries first. How are you. How’s your family. Glad you’re here.

Then the business.

You’ve been attending for a year now. It’s time to join or move on.

This time the feeling was different. Warmer on the surface, but with an aftertaste. A strange blend of affirmation and pressure. Like being told you’re welcome, but only if you sign.

A quiet thought crossed my mind. I didn’t say it out loud.

Is this a church… or a Costco membership?

We pushed the discomfort down. We forged ahead. This is what faithful people do. They submit. They commit. They trust the process.

They even had a word for it.

Not membership.

Covenant.

Doesn’t that sound religious?

---

The thing remembered later

It wasn’t until much later, after we were invited to leave and ultimately shown the door, that I remembered that sidewalk conversation.

The interrogation.
The instruction to go elsewhere.
The assumption of authority before relationship.

And suddenly the pattern snapped into focus.

This was never about belonging.

It was about control of access.

---

This is not covenant

Covenant, biblically, is forged through shared life, not paperwork. Through faithfulness over time, not compliance up front. Through mutual knowledge, not institutional clearance.

What we called “covenant membership” was something else entirely.

It was a mechanism.

A way to define insiders and outsiders.
A way to determine who could stay and who must go.
A way to sacralize an administrative boundary.

The language was holy.
The function was bureaucratic.

---

Membership as sacrament

Once you call membership a covenant, you give it spiritual weight without relational substance.

You turn agreement into allegiance.
Process into priesthood.
Paperwork into permission.

And once that happens, the institution gains a powerful tool.

Those inside are obligated.
Those outside are suspect.
Those who leave are not just departing a place, but breaking something sacred.

Even when nothing relational ever existed.

---

The illusion of belonging

Membership creates the feeling of belonging without requiring the vulnerability of it.

You can be counted without being known.
Included without being seen.
Accounted for without being cared for.

You belong because you passed through a gate, not because your life is intertwined with others.

It scratches the itch of longing without healing the wound.

---

Gatekeeping before shepherding

In the New Testament, shepherds know sheep.

Here, the sheep are screened first.

Questions precede relationship.
Authority precedes trust.
Judgment precedes knowledge.

Gatekeeping replaces care.
Boundary enforcement replaces discernment.

And it all feels righteous, because it’s done “for the health of the body.”

---

What disappears quietly

When belonging is outsourced to membership, a few things quietly vanish:

• The obligation to actually know one another

• The patience to let trust grow slowly

• The courage to deal with conflict face to face

• The humility to admit the body is small enough to be personal

The church grows.
The relationships thin.

And loneliness survives, even thrives, inside full rooms.

---

This is not belonging

Belonging cannot be issued.
It cannot be granted.
It cannot be revoked by a meeting or a vote.

Belonging is forged in shared meals, shared burdens, shared histories, and shared wounds.

If your absence would go unnoticed, you did not belong.
You were registered.

And registration, no matter how religious the language wrapped around it, is not covenant.

This is not belonging.

---

A necessary clarification

Membership, as we practice it today, is entirely a-biblical.

Not anti-biblical.
Not condemned.
Simply absent.

There is no New Testament category for signing into belonging.

That alone does not make it wrong.

Electricity is not biblical.
Chairs are not biblical.
Projectors, HVAC, microphones, websites, schedules—none of these appear in Scripture.

They are modern solutions to practical problems.

So the question is not “Is this ancient?”
The question is “What does this do?”

---

The questions that matter

Once we acknowledge membership as a modern invention, a different set of questions presses in.

What weight does it carry in the institution?
What does it authorize or restrict?
What does it quietly replace?

Most importantly:

• Is the thing it replaces clearly present in Scripture?

• Is membership a neutral convenience, or a facsimile of something biblical that gets thinned, damaged, or displaced?

• Does it move people closer to one another, or does it introduce a buffer?

• Does it cultivate presence, or does it manage proximity?

These are not theoretical questions.
They are observable ones.

---

What membership displaces

In the New Testament, belonging is not formalized. It is relationally obvious.

Paul can assume visibility without explaining it.

“I know whom I have believed.”
2 Timothy 1:12

“We were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our very lives.”
1 Thessalonians 2:8

“If one member suffers, all suffer together.”
1 Corinthians 12:26

These only work in a body where lives are interwoven, not merely aligned.

Membership, when elevated, subtly replaces:

• Knowing with enrolling

• Shared life with shared agreement

• Mutual responsibility with institutional oversight

• Face-to-face correction with procedural discipline

None of these replacements are announced.
They simply happen.

---

The New Testament assumes nearness

Notice how often instruction assumes proximity, not policy.

“Confess your sins to one another.”
James 5:16

“Exhort one another every day.”
Hebrews 3:13

“Admonish one another.”
Romans 15:14

“Bear one another’s burdens.”
Galatians 6:2

These commands collapse under distance.

They require:

• Regular presence

• Mutual familiarity

• Relational safety

• Ongoing access

You cannot outsource these to a structure without losing their substance.

---

Discipline without membership

One of the most common defenses of membership is discipline.

But even here, Scripture does not appeal to enrollment.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.”
Matthew 18:15

The authority assumed is relational, not positional.

The phrase is not “If a member sins.”
It is “If your brother sins.”

Family language.
Not organizational language.

---

A facsimile feels like the real thing

A facsimile is dangerous because it resembles what it replaces.

Membership looks like belonging.
Covenant language sounds like commitment.
Enrollment mimics devotion.

But resemblance is not equivalence.

A photograph of a table is not a meal.
A name on a list is not a life shared.

And yet the institution often treats the facsimile as sufficient.

---

Returning to the table

So we come back again to the table.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

The table does not ask:

• Have you joined?

• Have you signed?

• Have you completed the process?

The table asks:

• Are you here?

• Are you hungry?

• Will you stay?

• Will you pass the bread?

Paul does not say,

“When you gather as an approved membership…”

He says,

“When you come together to eat…”
1 Corinthians 11:33

Presence, not paperwork.

A supper club requires enrollment.
A body requires participation.

One filters access.
The other creates belonging.

---

The final measure

So membership itself is not the crime.

The measure is simpler:

Does this practice move us toward visible, shared life?
Or does it allow us to feel committed while remaining distant?

Does it lead us to the table?
Or does it stand guard at the door?

---

Next in the series: This Is Not God's House — examining how membership requires buildings to house and define belonging.