Church Membership

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About

We’re all looking for somewhere to belong—but we won’t find true belonging anywhere in this world outside God’s church. Reformed traditions emphasize church membership because it provides practical, spiritual blessings for our flourishing, yet the extent of those blessings isn’t always evident to us. Here Pastor Jonathan Landry Cruse explains the nature, necessity, benefits, and responsibilities of biblical church membership to revolutionize your understanding of this gift.

Written for the church, the Blessings of the Faith series introduces and celebrates Reformed doctrine and practice—each book features a brief and practical overview of its topic with discussion questions and an extensive Q&A section.

Endorsements

For several decades now, this was the book that had to be written. In an age when life in the church seems optional or even implausible to increasing numbers of professing Christians, Cruse offers a warm invitation to embrace the blessings of church membership, a rich fellowship that, he rightly contends, serves to enhance our walk with God. Readers will find especially helpful his pastoral responses to common objections and misgivings.–John R. Muether, Dean of Libraries and Professor of Church History, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando

In an era of frequent dechurching, we need a renewed vision for the importance and blessing of belonging to a local congregation of God’s people. Thankfully, this brief book is a helpful resource–biblical, clear, and encouraging–just the kind of book I’d want to hand to a new believer or study in a new members class. With warmth and theological depth, Jonathan Landry Cruse walks us through the scriptural foundations for church membership and answers common questions we may have. I’ve been a church member for decades, but I was stirred by these pages to again praise God for the privilege of belonging to his body.–Megan Hill, Author, A Place to Belong: Learning to Love the Local Church

Jonathan Cruse has crafted simply the finest entry-level introduction to church membership. This highly accessible starter kit is biblically grounded, confessionally informed, and pastorally helpful, showing us that God instructs us to join his church, why that membership blesses us, and how we should practically live it out. I am delighted to commend this book and even more delighted to give it to people visiting my church.–Harrison Perkins, Pastor, Oakland Hills Community Church (OPC); Author, Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction

The great strength of this book is that it offers so much more than a primer on “membership.” Really this is a book about the church in all its God-given glory and goodness and about how gracious God is in attending to our deepest desire for belonging. Jonathan Landry Cruse displays church membership as covenantally Christ-centered, pastorally beneficial, attractively necessary, spiritually nourishing, and sacrificially minded. This is the accessible guide many of us have been waiting for, and its value to the church will be immense.–David Gibson, Minister, Trinity Church, Aberdeen, Scotland

Jonathan delivers a bracing, biblical feast calling Christians back home–back to the family of faith, back to the grace of Christ, and back to the heart of God. If you’re serious about getting your life on track, nurturing your faith, reversing spiritual decline, reaching out to a lost and lonely world, and securing your place in heaven, read this book. I can scarcely imagine a better resource to place in the hands of new church members.–Neil C. Stewart, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina

Jonathan Landry Cruse (MDiv, Westminster Seminary California) is the pastor of Community Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he lives with his wife and three children. He is the author of several books, including What Happens When We Worship and The Character of Christ.

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