>From a Uniting Church (Australia) minister:

Dear friends and colleagues

We live at a time when many people are happy to participate in groups and organisations, but are less concerned with joining or ensuring that the organisation has a future. Some people will participate in the life of a local church, yet will be wary of formal membership, and will have little interest in the life of the denomination.

There was a time when most people were baptised as infants, and saw themselves as part of the church (even if not active attenders). If it occurred their transition into active and responsible membership was through confirmation. The assumption was that the person came to a mature faith and then became a member of the church. Today many people actively participate in the life of a local congregation as the way in which they explore faith. They may belong for some time before they make a decision about their faith.

What does all this mean for the way we understand membership in the Uniting Church? How do we deal with the fact that some growing congregations have many people who are actively part of their life, but these people are not formally members and so are not supposed to be able to serve as Elders or Church Councillors? What do we do for those people for whom the issue of ‘membership’ seems a silly question when they have participated actively in the church for a couple of years?

In churches like ours the issue of membership is usually tied up with the way we mark stages in discipleship. While we don’t equate our church life totally with the Body of Christ (we are a broken and incomplete fellowship while separated from other churches), we do embody the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. So baptism becomes a sign of our incorporation into Christ, and a sign of entry into the Church. Confirmation, which was originally intended to be an act to confirm the gift of the Holy Spirit (and was carried out by the Bishop), is now a sign of commitment in the Christian life and active membership of the Church.

I think we need to separate the two issues: to mark the stages of Christian faith in appropriate ways such as baptism and a renewed rite of confirmation, and mark membership of the institutional church in other ways.

I would like to offer the following suggestion as a way of encouraging a conversation about membership. It is my hope that this can be a major point of discussion at Synod, and that we might forward a discussion paper to the Assembly. If you have any comments, please let me know. If you would be happy to be part of a group who do more work on this, send me an email and I’ll start a discussion group. (I know I have talked to a few people before, but I hope I can finally get the discussion started.)

I think we should make a number of assumptions:

The primary purpose of membership is to enable people to participate in the shared life of a local congregation which sees itself as part of the UCA. It is about being part of a community, mutual accountability, and a sense of being open to the oversight of that community.

A minimum requirement for membership is baptism.

That people will be considered to be members if they claim membership, and the local congregation accepts that claim. That is, people should be willing to covenant with the local faith community for mutual accountability and acceptance of the oversight of both the local church and the connections with a wider denomination. One of the things this might imply is that one could not transfer from one congregation to another without a conscious acceptance of that transfer by the new congregation.

One thing that could happen is that each year people would covenant to share together in that Christian community known as the Uniting Church, and to accept the pastoral care and oversight of that community, and to recognise their place within the wider Church. People would then be able to share in decision-making for the next year, sort of like an annual voting role.

Membership as decided by the local congregation is appropriate for participation in other councils of the church (where the person is nominated by the local congregation), provided that, because the person is seeking to represent the local faith community and offer for leadership in the wider church, they must be part of the UCA for at least 12 months and be willing to adhere to the Basis of Union.

Dealing with any disputes about membership should be the responsibility of the Presbytery.

May God who creates and sustains the world, Jesus who brings us forgiveness, healing and new life, and the Spirit who empowers us, bless you in this period from Easter to Pentecost.