Book Review

Church Membership: How the World Knows who Represents Jesus

Jonathan Leeman

Crossway Books

132 Pages

At the church plant I attend, we are working through the development of church membership. It has been exciting for me to help in that process, because the topic of the church and what it should look like is one that I enjoy discussing and thinking about. This book helped me think about church membership in a richer and deeper way. It helped solidify and emphasize the significance of being united to a local body of believers.

Jonathan Leeman, who is a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D. C. and part of 9Marks ministries, makes a very good and helpful distinction between membership to a club and membership to a church. In some ways, the cultural understanding of the word membership hinders our understanding of what a Christian's relationship to the local church should be. A huge point Leeman makes is: "Christians don't join churches; they submit to them." The local church is not intended by God to be a take it or leave it, come and go as you please social group. A church is an outpost or embassy of the kingdom of God. As such it is made up of citizens of God's kingdom who represent Him here on earth. All those who identify themselves with Christ must necessarily also identify themselves with a local church. 

The book is very easy to read. The pages are small, so 132 pages is equivalent to about half that many in a normal size book. It is straightforward and will be transformative and shaping in the way you view membership to the local church as perhaps the most significant and distinct way you represent Jesus to the World.