Why Should We Consider Changing the Age of Membership in the Church Constitution?

The elders are considering a change in our constitution.  A change in the constitution requires a vote from the congregation, so we wanted to explain what this change is.  Namely, the consideration is to remove the age requirement of 18 years old to be a member.  This may seem to be a somewhat minor change, but this touches several areas that converge together in a significant way.  The primary issues are baptism, membership, the Lord’s Supper and the nature of children regarding those issues.  

We see a number of problems with the current membership age being 18, the first being a problem regarding the connection of baptism and membership.  If a teen is willing to say that Jesus is his Lord in all areas of his life, and Jesus’ death and resurrection is his only hope for forgiveness and life eternal, what then?  Most would say, “Baptism!”  And that is the natural next step.  However, if they can’t become a member until 18, then to go ahead and do baptism before 18 would be to sever baptism from local church membership.  That is a problem.  Sadly, many people today do not think it is a problem to baptize someone apart from a local church and membership in it.  Most think baptism is only a public declaration of faith in Christ and so baptism can be done anytime, anywhere and by anyone.  

But baptism is more than a declaration of faith.  It is an ordinance given to the church, performed by the church, and, with its picture of being united to Christ, also the initiation into the church.  And to be clear, we are talking about a local church, not the universal church.  The universal church is the invisible assembly of every true Christian dead or alive, baptized or not baptized.  You join the universal church at the moment of conversion, not baptism.  In contrast, baptism is visible, it is local, and it is done by the church.  During Pentecost in Acts 2, it says the people of Peter’s audience “were baptized; and that day there were added about 3000.” (v. 41).  They were not added to the universal church because that happened at the moment of conversion.  Addition by baptism was addition to the local church in Jerusalem.   The universal church is visibly seen and expressed in the local church.  Because of this, you cannot rightly be a part of the universal body of Christ without also prioritizing and moving towards being a member of a local body of Christ, and that is to begin with baptism.  

While there can be some exceptional situations, such as the Acts 8 Ethiopian eunuch or missionary fields where there are no churches, the normal pattern is to connect baptism with church membership.  To baptize people without membership is to have them walk through a door with no house on the other side.  What a sad and dangerous situation to bring them through a doorway with nothing to live in, nothing to be shepherded in, nothing to serve in, or nothing to be accountable in.  

The other factor that converges upon the baptism and membership issue is the matter of the Lord’s Supper.  If a person cannot rightly be baptized without being brought into membership, and he cannot join in membership till he is 18, then this also keeps him from the Lord’s Supper.  Since part of the Lord’s Supper is the picture of the unity of one body eating from one bread (1 Cor. 10:16-17 “we who are many are one body; for we all partake of one bread), a person should not take the Lord’s Supper if they are not united to a church as a baptized member.  These three features – baptism, membership, and the Lord’s Supper - are all tied together.   

To make people wait till 18 to be baptized and made a member has a couple more problems.  First, by the time they are 18 they are usually headed out the door to college or career.  This would mean they are leaving our church without ever having made a public profession of faith in baptism, become a member, taken the Lord’s Supper, and submitted under elders as a serving, accountable Christian.  Second, we do not want to encourage the idea that young people have no spiritual accountability until they are 18.  While 18 is the legal definition, we want to affirm their standing as young adults accountable before God who are capable of all manner of responsibility, spiritual and otherwise.  If they are unwilling to submit to Christ as a teenager, they need to begin to feel the weight of that by realizing they don’t belong to the church by their own choice, not because our constitution keeps them out until 18.

Why are we removing the age requirement of 18 and not just adding a lower age requirement?  The reason is because the age is not the important thing.  What is important is the elders faithfully doing their job of evaluating the profession of each person seeking baptism and membership.  Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to the church.  These “keys” mean it is the church’s job, with elders leading this task, to recognize a credible profession of faith and bring people into the church, as well as put people out when there is continual unrepentant sin.  This constitutional change concerns bringing people into the church not according to an age but according to a reasonably credible profession, coming from a relatively mature person who can realistically count the cost of embracing Jesus as Lord.  Which is to say that pre-teen children cannot normally do that.  While pre-teen children can be truly saved, the elders cannot safely make determinations about the authenticity of their regeneration when they are still immature.  

Therefore, the elders are proposing to remove the age requirement from our constitution.  Undoubtedly, there will be other questions about this and we encourage you to discuss this with your elder.  May we seek the Lord for wisdom and ask his guidance for a greater faithfulness in our church life.