If you watch mainstream media, then chances are you have heard the phrase “my truth.” Whether in movies, TV shows, social media reels and/or posts, it seems that we cannot escape the reality that we are living in the “my truth” era. Oprah even helped popularize this phrase during an acceptance speech in 2018.1 “My/Your/Their Truth” has become a sort of calling card for those who reject outright the idea that there exists anything that could be defined as absolute truth. This ideology holds subjective truth (what a person identifies as their own personal truth) higher than objective truth (truth that is true no matter how a person feels about it). Some might even argue that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Faith and church
I don’t remember the first time I heard “my truth” but I do remember the first time I heard the phrase “my faith” used in a similar fashion. I was at a fitness gym here in Iceland and I was having a conversation with an Icelandic man who was intrigued by my tattoo of a cross. He in turn showed me his Jesus fish tattoo, and I too was intrigued, first by the tattoo and then immediately regarding his faith. Within minutes I learned this man was not an active member of any one local church here in Iceland, but instead floated around to various churches depending on who was speaking or what type of music program was being offered that day. I think he could see a slight shift in my expression, and he followed up our exchange by saying, “I have my faith.” I found this response interesting and slightly terrifying. The phrase was aimed at disarming the notion that the man’s faith was somehow questionable, even illegitimate. It is his faith—who has the right or authority to question if it is genuine or not?
Every single born-again Christian does in fact have their own personal faith, meaning that faith is not something inherited or assigned, it is a gift from God that connects a hell-bound sinner directly to his redemptive grace. Your faith in Jesus Christ is personal and private in that sense. But there is another aspect to faith in Jesus that is not personal and private at all and is in fact corporate and even public. When we ignore this dimension of faith, we run the risk of having a faith that is indeed questionable and possibly illegitimate.
The purpose of church membership
In the Nordic countries, it is very common for individuals to be registered with a country’s national Lutheran church. Most are baptized when they are infants and, in Iceland, this is when the baby is officially named. Later, in adolescence, a person is confirmed through a confirmation process, and then they are showered with gifts (a definite incentive to get confirmed!). This is a very important cultural practice, at least in Iceland, but you would have a hard time finding such a practice in the Bible. I am not saying that we must be able to point to a chapter and verse to justify everything a church does, but I do believe we need to be very clear on what the Bible says regarding what it means to belong to a church and who is (and is not) a member. In the Nordics, church membership is merely being registered with the national church, but what does scripture have to say about church membership?
First, a definition. Jonathan Leeman, an American pastor and editor at 9Marks Ministries, defines church membership as “a declaration of citizenship in Christ’s kingdom.” He goes on saying,
It’s a passport. It’s an announcement made in the pressroom of Christ’s kingdom. It’s the declaration that a professing individual is an official, licensed, card-carrying, bona fide Jesus representative. More concretely, church membership is a formal relationship between a local church and a Christian characterized by the church’s affirmation and oversight of a Christian’s discipleship and the Christian’s submission to living out his or her discipleship in the care of the church.”2
The household of God
Church membership ensures that everyone who professes to be a born-again disciple of Jesus is actively connected to and participating in the household of God (1 Tim. 3:15). This is not merely being registered with a national church. The Gospels make it very clear that disciples of Jesus are learners and doers of the Word; not learning and doing by themselves, but rather learning how to follow Jesus, grow in likeness to Jesus, and do good works with other members of the family of God. These members share the same adoption as sons and daughters (Eph. 1:5). If you claim Christ as Lord, then you are one of the many members of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27), a single living stone that is supposed to gather with other living stones and form the temple of the living God (1 Pet. 2:5). All this signals that our faith is not a solo project.
Church membership ensures that everyone who professes to be a born-again disciple of Jesus is actively connected to and participating in the household of God.
When a woman forsakes the gathering together of the local faith family where she is committed and known as a church member, to whom is she confessing her sins (James 5:16)? Who is building her up (1 Thess. 5:11)? Who is helping to gently restore her (Gal. 6:1–2)? When you believe your faith is between you and God alone, who is encouraging you to mature more into the image of Christ, full of love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24)?
Being a committed member of a local church is vital to your faith flourishing. A local church should be a committed group of professing Christ followers who regularly gather on the Lord’s Day to worship King Jesus. The heart of this worship should be the preaching of the Word of God. It is the Word and the Spirit that creates the Christian, thereby creating this community, and it is the Word and the Spirit that unite each member in the bonds of love. A biblical community where everyone is helping one another follow Jesus, together seeking to serve the community, the city, the nation, and nations. This is the church.
Optional attendance
One thing I have noticed in the Nordics is that the worship gathering itself is often viewed as optional. Even if a person is a registered member, there is no need to be an active member, meaning on any given Sunday they could be attending their daughter’s gymnastics competition, their son’s soccer game, or just enjoying the nice weekend weather. Believer beware: your soul needs to gather and worship Christ with other believers. Do not forsake the worship gathering, and do not forsake the community of faith (Heb. 10:25).
While the term “church membership” cannot be found in the Bible, the concept is clearly given to us by Jesus. Jesus gave us the ordinances of the church—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—so that the church knows when a person professes to be a believer (baptism) and can identify the faithful members in the covenant community (Lord’s Supper). Both Jesus and Paul discuss how church membership and church discipline work together to guard membership and maintain the purity of the church (Matt. 18:18–20; 1 Cor. 5:1–5).
If you believe that your faith is only personal and private, ask yourself, “How can I be sure that my faith is alive and true?” James, the brother of Jesus, makes it clear that there is such a thing as dead faith (James 2:17) and even Jesus himself said that there would be people who believed they were his followers but on the last day would be shown to not truly be one of his sheep (Matt. 7:22–23; 25:31–46). We need the local church to assure us of our salvation by affirming our testimony each week as we gather to worship Christ and as we regularly take the Lord’s Supper, together.
The privatization of faith and truth
It is very tempting to create your own truth. In an age where people get to redefine what is true and redesign reality, the sinful nature of man—which has always desired to play God—is running wild like a rebellious child.
From the beginning, humanity has desired to be like God (Gen. 3:5). After the Fall, image bearers of God continued to rebel by fashioning their own false gods to worship or worshipping certain people as gods. Idolatry robs humanity of the truth that there is only one God and we are not him. When we suppress this truth (Rom. 1:18) we are doomed. We enslave ourselves to the ruler of this world instead of being set free by the truth (John 8:31–35; 14:6).
In a similar way, it is tempting to craft our own faith, deceiving ourselves that the faith we have is alive and true, when it very well might be dead and false. If we are disconnected to the body and bride of Christ, if we believe our faith is only personal and private, then we run the risk of being told one day, by the True Object of The Faith, “I never knew you.”
One thing I have noticed in the Nordics is that the worship gathering itself is often viewed as optional.
Christ continues to gather believers to himself. By his perfect design, when we gather, we gather together and not alone, because in heaven we will be together and not alone. When we gather to worship Christ as Lord with other believers, we are reminded that we are a part of something cosmic, something beautiful. We are reminded that God is still saving sinners. Being a follower of Jesus is more than displaying a fish or cross tattoo. Being a Christian is more than being born in a country with a national church and a cross on its flag. Joining and belonging to a local church is not a governmental process nor a mere cultural tradition, it is a gift from Christ and meant for our good. This is The Faith—is it yours?