Re-Thinking Church Membership (Part 17)

Read the entire series of posts here.

Continuing from the same quote, in Parts 14 and 15 of my series, from Part 2 of Pulpit Magazine's article on church membership with regards to pastors' responsibilities:

Elders can shepherd the people and give an account to God for their spiritual well-being only if they know who they are; they can provide oversight only if they know those for whom they are responsible; and they can fulfill their duty to shepherd the flock only if they know who is part of the flock and who is not.

There is a large assumption here. A Christian can be a regular attender (regular assembler) of a church, obey the leaders, obey God, obey the bible, love all their brothers and sisters, and yet not be considered a member by the leaders. Because this Christian is looked at as a non-member by the leadership, they assume that God will not hold them accountable for that sheep. They feel free to ignore that sheep. And I have had elders tell me this personally.  This is scary.

Part 16 . . . . . . . . Part 18