"Regular attenders" that avoid commitment?

[barnhart]

Is this a growing trend? Is it an expression of the broader society values of distrust in organizations?

I would add that it is also impacted by the church reaping the harvest of individualism in previous generations. Essentially, its the Renaissance coming home to roost.

There certainly is a broad trend in that direction but at the same time there are smaller counter trends. For example the economic and social dislocation of the late 19th century produced many high level commitment groups and cults. Maybe there is a counter trend in our future. History says those can also be dangerous.

[steve-in-kville]

Is this a growing trend? Is it an expression of the broader society values of distrust in organizations?

This is just a theory... but I think outsiders (potential transplants/seekers/converts) are exercising more caution when joining ranks with a conservative anabaptist group. Reason being? Look at the various scandals that have surfaced in the last four years that involved Anabaptist people of organizations. CAM and the J. Mast thing. The Riehl Accounting pyramid scandal. And those are the ones that made national headlines. Not to mention the local stuff that involved local church's, schools and such like.

Would you be in a hurry to join a church is there is even a whiff of misconduct?

Again, just a working theory.

[Sudsy]

I do think that the 'formal' part of this is not something of great importance, but the voiced intention to give and accept counsel as a part of the body IS important.

I want to lend my support to this statement. I'll add that formal membership is very helpful in this process. I understand the idea that the Bible doesn't talk about "local church membership" the way its practiced today, but it's just a formalizing of what the Bible DOES talk about, like "submitting yourselves one to another" and the whole process of church discipline in Matthew 18/Luke 17.

I mostly went to baptist churches that were so lack on church discipline that when I went to a church that practiced it, I was like "Wow! They actually do what the Bible tells them to do, they don't just kinda spiritualized it!" This disciplining church also had really formal lines between members and visitors.

Then i went to a baptist church where the pastor was really zealous about church discipline, but he, again, mostly emphasized spiritual membership in the universal church, not so much the local church. So he would tell stories about bullying visitors out of the church because they were living together unwed and stuff. They were just visitor, they never got a chance to come alongside and learn and be convicted. They obviously didn't have the same convictions as this baptist church, they had obviously not been taught the same doctrines and traditions. Tons of people are led to Christ through a simple, toothless message about justification, and are not taught how to follow Christ. But this pastor just thought "Hey, if they come in here on Sunday and claim to be Christians, I gotta treat them the same way I would my closer brothers and sisters."

Imagine seekers in your church who had not been taught about the headship order. If a woman was visiting your church service and was not veiling, would you treat her the same as you would a member of your church? If the answer is "No," I think you're now onto the reason membership is an important -or at least valuable- tool for a church to have, and for individual Christians to embrace.

I agree with Neto on this also but I believe and have experienced this in a church without a formal church covenant and/or set of rules to follow. It was done by elders in a concern that a believer was drifting into sin and they were there to help them see and deal with that sin. This did not require them to first be an official church member but rather that it was obvious this was their home church.

I recall awhile back someone posted about a church member buying a certain car that the church leaders did not approve of and made him sell it. This is the kind of accountability that some get into and imo it smacks of religion not relationship and being guided by the Spirit.Some churches have 'busy bodies' going around pointing out the flaws in others. A holier-than-thou attitude. These are also prime examples for the elders to deal with. These folk seem to see themselves as being called to being the police force to keep the church 'without spot or wrinkle'. We had some of these in my early years and we didn't even have church membership or a church covenant.

[Josh]

Is this a growing trend? Is it an expression of the broader society values of distrust in organizations?

Or perhaps the broader societal value of not placing much importance on institutions these days.

[Josh]

Is this a growing trend? Is it an expression of the broader society values of distrust in organizations?

This is just a theory... but I think outsiders (potential transplants/seekers/converts) are exercising more caution when joining ranks with a conservative anabaptist group. Reason being? Look at the various scandals that have surfaced in the last four years that involved Anabaptist people of organizations. CAM and the J. Mast thing. The Riehl Accounting pyramid scandal. And those are the ones that made national headlines. Not to mention the local stuff that involved local church's, schools and such like.

Would you be in a hurry to join a church is there is even a whiff of misconduct?

Again, just a working theory.

I found myself in those shows around 6 years ago. Eventually I decided to investigate my current church and sister churches very thoroughly… I read thousands upon thousands of forum posts, a few books by, and listened to podcasts for many hours by aggrieved ex-members of my church.

Going thru that process made me feel much more confident about joining.

[NedFlanders]

Is this a growing trend? Is it an expression of the broader society values of distrust in organizations?

This is just a theory... but I think outsiders (potential transplants/seekers/converts) are exercising more caution when joining ranks with a conservative anabaptist group. Reason being? Look at the various scandals that have surfaced in the last four years that involved Anabaptist people of organizations. CAM and the J. Mast thing. The Riehl Accounting pyramid scandal. And those are the ones that made national headlines. Not to mention the local stuff that involved local church's, schools and such like.

Would you be in a hurry to join a church is there is even a whiff of misconduct?

Again, just a working theory.

I found myself in those shows around 6 years ago. Eventually I decided to investigate my current church and sister churches very thoroughly… I read thousands upon thousands of forum posts, a few books by, and listened to podcasts for many hours by aggrieved ex-members of my church.

Going thru that process made me feel much more confident about joining.

I did more investigating too. In the scandals but more so everything. What I found with people like J. Mast is that he was part of Charity, H. Herr was excommunicated from an ultra setting before being allowed to be involved in ministry by less conservative settings, and so on. That most of the scandals were in transitional churches that I looked into. Seekers, converts and etc. are obviously weary of jumping right in and commiting oneself to something you don’t fully know, but in so doing they end up going to less conservative transitional churches that aren’t good for encouraging submitting and should be avoided altogether too…. Makes a big jump for us going right past transitional churches into a deeper commitment but it is the way Christ said it is to be.

[Valerie]

This is just a theory... but I think outsiders (potential transplants/seekers/converts) are exercising more caution when joining ranks with a conservative anabaptist group. Reason being? Look at the various scandals that have surfaced in the last four years that involved Anabaptist people of organizations. CAM and the J. Mast thing. The Riehl Accounting pyramid scandal. And those are the ones that made national headlines. Not to mention the local stuff that involved local church's, schools and such like.

Would you be in a hurry to join a church is there is even a whiff of misconduct?

Again, just a working theory.

I found myself in those shows around 6 years ago. Eventually I decided to investigate my current church and sister churches very thoroughly… I read thousands upon thousands of forum posts, a few books by, and listened to podcasts for many hours by aggrieved ex-members of my church.

Going thru that process made me feel much more confident about joining.

I did more investigating too. In the scandals but more so everything. What I found with people like J. Mast is that he was part of Charity, H. Herr was excommunicated from an ultra setting before being allowed to be involved in ministry by less conservative settings, and so on. That most of the scandals were in transitional churches that I looked into. Seekers, converts and etc. are obviously weary of jumping right in and commiting oneself to something you don’t fully know, but in so doing they end up going to less conservative transitional churches that aren’t good for encouraging submitting and should be avoided altogether too…. Makes a big jump for us going right past transitional churches into a deeper commitment but it is the way Christ said it is to be.

Our friend is m a king a huge jump to ultra conservative Old Order Amish. It's a community he has known & observed for 2 decades plus. It boggles my mind how he can go from our world to this- at his age. But for him, he sees no better alternative for his soul. So will join in December & get baptized next year. It seems he is totally at a point of submission. He does this recognizing there are many communities he would not fit that are more liberal (hard to use liberal pertaining to Amish!)

[steve-in-kville]

Every church I now of, no matter conservative or progressive is gonna have a skeleton or two in the closet. To me, it's all about how it is/was handled (if it was handled at all).

[Ernie]

Fortunately, I don't know a lot of these situations, but I have seen a few over the years: families that attend a church regularly, participate in services and activities (where allowed) but never commit to membership. I've known of situations where their own teenage children are baptized into membership, yet the parents prefer to remain non-members.

Sometimes, they move on eventually and find the right fit in another fellowship. Sometimes they drift off into nothing. I don't see this much in the larger, long-established groups as much as I do in church plants, mission points and the in-between-ish (independent?) type circles.

I have no real direction for this topic. Discuss, give opinions, tell stories, whatever.

I think churches develop a reputation on this matter. Some churches give the message, "Attend as long as you like."
Others send the message, "We want you to attend a church that you can be committed and submitted to. If that is not us, we'll try to help you find a different one."
And then there are all the churches in between.

[Neto]

I think I've said this in other context before, but the MB congregation in which I grew up would encourage members who had to move away to find another congregation. They would follow up on this with a letter of telephone call after 6 months. I wasn't in leadership there, so I don't know if they offered any assistance in the search, but I think that this practice recognized the importance of close association and involvement in a local congregation. (They also strongly encouraged people to go through the process of membership transfer, where the pastor of the new congregation would request a letter of recommendation. In my thinking, this is how the larger Body of Christ ought to operate.)