The following behaviors are a requirement for church membership in most churches:
- Law Abiding
- Well mannered, respectful, kind, and considerate
- Working towards perfection
- Analytical of mistakes and open to modifying behaviors after examining their root causes
Various churches will have different requirements for specific membership with their church group and not all will agree on an interpretation or meaning of a specific bible verse or passage but the above behaviors are pretty consistent with acceptable conduct for church members. This often requires 6 months to two years of attendance before officially becoming a church member and being able to participate in church administration or management pending other qualifications.
Identifying as a Christian implies law abiding behaviors in addition to working towards a sinless life. This requires regular self assessment of behaviors that need further modification in order to be in compliance with church requirements for sinlessness.
Here, grace, innocence, context, perceptions, and perspectives come into play; not before as before church membership is granted, the visitor, guest or learner is assumed to be in a state of non-compliance while they learn and implement church teachings into their life.
Often, church membership has a sense of confidentiality because it is not neccessary to disclose religious affiliations or practices in most developed nations unless there is a specific reason to do so; like a court proceeding that requires the church to speak on a persons behalf or one where the church is being sued by the local community for things like discrimination, land use rights, jobs availability, or responsible party governance. It can also be for religious freedom deprivation.
Additionally different churches have rules regarding what type of ministries are available to participate in, training for evangelism and public interaction, and things like dating, content consumption, acceptable dress code at church or in public, and the context of debate when dialoguing with other denominations.
Overall, some churches have high priority items for sins that are not acceptable within their denominations and others that they are more lenient about but still require to be purged over time and kept confidential if associating publicly as a church member. Confession, prayer, meditation, and healing happens within the church and not in public unless it is through evangelism and a request for guest access to church teachings.
Most specific Church Membership Policies will be reviewed with each denomination before requesting membership and accepting those terms, some will be outlined on this site as appropriate and with permission.
While many people are under the impression that Christians are one monolithic group, this is not neccessarily true even if they have many things in common. A distributed network of people with similar beliefs might be more accurate at this point in time. Overall, Christians make up 20% to 33% of the global population and this number now includes Catholics and Jews because its a way for government to simplify Census.
Over 70 major Christian denominations exist within Christianity and while they don’t always agree on everything that is published within a specific church, or presented or announced at a pulpit; there is a baseline of acceptable conduct to be a church member. Church membership is not the same as a church visitor, church guest, or church place learner.
While a church guest or visitor can be a minister, elder, evangelist, pastor, priest, deacon, bishop, or cardinal; most often it refers to a person who is not a church member and is not part of the church administration or management groups. Overseeking details is often viewed as a neural or psychological dysfunction; and in the times of the bible, written between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago; this would often be called a demon possession. Church based teachings would address the issue of spirit expulsion, which the Catholic Church would call an exorcism.
Required behaviors are often based on the bible even if terminologies have been updated to integrate with modern renditions of English and other contemporary languages. The basis for the modern context of required behaviors can be traced to the Bible even if it requires some intermediary steps based on archeology, anthropology, etymology, sociology, and history.
To simplify, most churches require the following behaviors of their members in order to remain compliant with church policy on membership requirements and acceptable conduct:
- Be Law Abiding Render unto Ceasars what is Ceasars – Matthew 22:21
- Treat others well And as ye would [be done…] to you, do ye also to them – Luke 6:31
- Follow the Old Testament Requirements
- Think not that I am come to destroy the law, […] but to fulfill – Matthew 5:17
- …the same yesterday, to day, and for ever. – Hebrew 13:8
- Lord … of the sabbath day – Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28
- Be kind to yourself
- … all have sinned, and come short of the glory of G-D. – Romans 3:23
- Confess your faults to one another, and pray […] that you may be healed. – James 5:16
- If we confess our sins […], He is […] just to […] cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This is all based on the bible and additional behavioral requirements are found in Exodus, Leviticus, the Gospels and throughout various parts of the bible.