OC/IC "Who Is A Member"? – What is "Church"?

If you’ve not already seen it go and visit John Plummer’s blog Priestcraft and read his discussion on membership.

Originally I thought I could cover this in one post – as I think is becoming the case over at John’s blog, it’s a richer topic and deserves a bit more space to breathe and grow. At the moment this is the first of three planned installments.

I think that when we talk about who is a member, and how is that membership expressed or identified, we must also look at what is the purpose of “church”. To have membership in something that has no purpose is to effectively have no membership. This is, I think a round about way of saying – that in order to best answer the question of “who is a member of the OC/IC/ISM community” one must explore the purpose of that community – both the wider movement and the local expressions we find ourselves belonging to.

While John’s post plays with the common question “who is a member”, I think we end up with a much richer answer by playing with the question: what is “church”, what is the purpose of “church”?

It often seems to be the case that “church” is associated with a building – a particular place, a specific set of rites, and a named denomination (a structured organisation). Overcoming this association is very difficult, and is easily demonstrated by the questions often asked of OC/IC folk about our local community, and the wider movement. Where is your “church”? What is the name of your “church”? How many members does your “church” have? How big is your “church” [read denomination]? These are not unreasonable questions, but they do point to the commonly held understanding of the meaning of “church”.

Is my “membership” in a church then necessarily restricted to my participation in these narrowly defined activities, and association with a particular model? Someone asked me, with reference to a previous post, how it is that as I am not a member of a traditional “Orthodox” denomination I see myself as being a faithful Eastern Christian. You can read my answer here – but the question was both a good one, and I think not unrelated to the popular perception of “church” and “membership”. My appropriation of an E. Christian identity is not dependent upon the popular perception of “church” which in a way makes me a true indie boy!

What does my membership mean – that is to say what is the substance behind it? Most of the ways in which people commonly associate “meaning” with “church” and membership in a given “church” is through the surface characteristics of ecclesiology – and in our OC/IC/ISM context too often we see how this inheritance of imagery and language carries over in the worst possible ways resulting in a proliferation of synods and jurisdictions, cliques, circles, orders and sub-orders that would make a daemon’s head spin and implode!); too often we “confuse” ecclesiology with “church” and in the end, I think we are the poorer for it. The “substance” behind our understanding of “church” must be theology not ecclesiology. Ecclesiology serves theology – not the other way around. Through theology (the underpinning substance of “church”) my membership gains a richness in meaning and enjoyment that cannot be achieved through ecclesiology alone.

So what does “church” mean – if it is not ecclesiology, buildings, organisations, and rites? I’m not convinced that I’ve got the “entire” description or definition set in my own mind. My starting points however are the example we find in Acts, and the original meaning of the word “ekklesia” itself.

I prefer to use ekklesia rather than church – even though they refer to the same “noun” ekklesia is different enough to allow people to consider the options without necessarily holding fast to the baggage they bring when talking about or considering the meaning and value of “church”.

Ekklesia then is simply this: an assembly of the citizens regularly summoned – the sense is that the assembly is summoned for a purpose (originally legislative).

Luke offers a convenient description of life in the first ekklesia (Acts. 2.42ff) – which can be quickly summarised as: prayer, study, and service. The purpose of the ekklesia is to collectively engage in prayer, study and service. Overemphasising one at the expense of the other two shifts the purpose and thus the identity of that assembly away from a Christian ekklesia towards something else.

“Membership” is characterised – the “citizens” regularly assemble – not just anyone. St. Athanasius describes the church and its members as polity and citizenry on more than one occasion – it is thus, reasonable to say that through baptism we become members – citizens of the ekklesia.

Baptism forms us, it gives us a very clear identity – we become “Christ in the World” and are thus charged to exemplify his life (prayer and service) and teaching (thus the need for study and I would add, engagement).

Now membership is beginning to take on meaning – my membership in the ekklesia is one dedicated to prayer, study and service. Saying that I am a member is saying something about my aspirations, and my values. Saying I am a member is something that is intimately linked with my identity – and the identity of other members.

Membership requires both a personal investment in the ekklesia, as well as an investment in the person by the ekkklesia – without this investment membership is devalued, and might even be meaningless. The consequence is of this that if something happens that needs the assembly to be one body – there is little likelihood that this will happen, because some or all of the constituents of that assembly will have their own agenda’s and seek to do their own thing, or nothing at all.