Church Membership

I've been working on some questions to ask an informal gathering of all the folk at church. The idea of the meeting is to have lunch together one Sunday and talk about membership. About what it means and how we can better engage in membership as a meaningful part of being a local church. 

So far I've generated a lot of questions and they need to be narrowed down. I won't even be surprised if they are not replaced by a few new ones too as we process them as a leadership team.

But I wouldn't mind finding out if anyone who reads my blog has any thoughts about membership and what questions we should be asking ourselves.

So here are my initial 16 questions! I did say there were a lot, and they will be narrowed down I promise they will.

1 What is Church Membership
What exactly is a church member? Is anyone who comes to church a member?

2 How should you become a Church Member 
Is it by faith or by vote?

3 What should a Church Member do?
Is this something that is internally focussed, ministry and service within the church, or does it have a wider, mission-focussed heart?

4 How do we make Membership more meaningful?

5 If we had a membership covenant, what might it look like?

6 Should it be easier to become a member or harder?

7 How often should we meet?

8 What kind of church meetings should we have?
How much prayer, worship, sharing should they include? What should be on the agenda?

9 How should we make decisions?
Should we vote more? Are we supposed to be doing things democratically? What principles should apply?

10 How should the church meeting and being a member relate to the church leadership?

11 Is church membership just about having your say or are there other things that should apply?

12 What should we do about “inactive” members?

13 How would you feel if you had to opt into membership each year?

14 How do we express membership beyond the church meeting?

15 What kind of members does God want us to produce in this church?

16 What kind of experiences do people need to have in order to become these kinds of members?