why church membership

why is it important to require people to “join” a church and become a “member”? Isn’t “membership” an outdated term/concept?

Joe Thorn has posted some thoughts as well as an outline for his membership class. Excellent stuff.

We do church “membership” because we believe it is a healthy way for us to practice what the Bible teaches should be true of a local church. Specifically, formal membership enables us to function as a covenant community characterized by a unified faith, work and discipline. Apart from membership we find that these things are more difficult to maintain.
…..
We use the term membership for two reasons.

1. The term is biblical (Rom 12; 1 Cor 12; Eph 2:19, 3:6, 4:25, 5:30).

……

2. The concept is biblical.
…….

go read the rest for explanation under each of the points above.