For all of his evangelistic preaching, Spurgeon refused to separate the call to the gospel with the call to be accountable to a local church. Spurgeon once stated, “I would rather give up my pastorate than admit any man to the Church who was not obedient to his Lord’s command; and such a course would certainly promote the downfall of any Church that practiced it.”

In 1854, when Charles Spurgeon began pastoring the New Park Street Chapel, he had a handful of deacons and a membership of 313 (though the actual attendance was much smaller). In just twelve weeks, they outgrew their space and made plans to enlarge their building. But almost immediately, they needed even more space, and so the church made plans to build a new building that would eventually become the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Space issues were a problem, but more than that, Spurgeon suddenly found himself caring for a congregation that had grown far beyond his capacity.

This mattered to Spurgeon because of his ecclesiological commitments. He was not an itinerant preacher, and his church was not merely a preaching station. For all of his evangelistic preaching, Spurgeon refused to separate the call to the gospel with the call to be accountable to a local church. Spurgeon once stated, “I would rather give up my pastorate than admit any man to the Church who was not obedient to his Lord’s command; and such a course would certainly promote the downfall of any Church that practiced it.”[1]

For Spurgeon, this was not an idle commitment. In Spurgeon’s first six-and-a-half years at New Park Street Chapel, the church added 1,442 new members. That’s 1,442 membership interviews, 1,442 meetings with Spurgeon, 1,442 membership visitations, 1,442 testimonies before the congregation, and 1,442 approvals by the congregation—not to mention over a thousand baptisms, as most of these were new converts.

These numbers would only increase. For any pastor, Spurgeon not excluded, caring for a growing church can become a crushing load. And yet, Spurgeon refused to compromise his convictions for conveniences. Throughout his ministry, he pursued meaningful, regenerate church membership—and in doing so, the Metropolitan Tabernacle became an engine for gospel-ministry all around the world.

Here are five ways Spurgeon did this.

1) A Careful Membership Process

In the February 1869 edition of the Spurgeon’s magazine, The Sword and the Trowel (S&T), Spurgeon provides a six-step description of their membership process:

1. An enquirer meets with one of the elders on a Wednesday evening and shares with them their testimony. Assuming a clear testimony has been shared, the elder records each testimony and schedules a meeting with the pastor for an interview.
2. If the pastor is satisfied, at a congregational meeting, he will nominate an elder or church member as a “visitor.” This visitor will “enquire as to the moral character and repute of the candidate” by meeting with the candidate and talking to their neighbors, co-workers, family members, former church, etc. The goal is to find out whether there’s evidence of a life consistent with their profession of faith.
3. If the visitor is satisfied, he will invite the candidate to attend a congregational meeting in which he or she will come before the church and answer any questions. According to Spurgeon, this happens “to elicit expressions of his trust in the Lord Jesus, and the hope of salvation through his blood, and any such facts of his spiritual history as may convince the church of the genuineness of the case.”
4. After the statement before the church, the candidate withdraws, and the visitor gives his report.
5. The church then takes a vote to receive him into membership.
6. The person is publicly given the right-hand of fellowship after being baptized and participating in the next communion service of the church.[2]

With so many applying for membership, Spurgeon refined and made this process more efficient over the years, but never in a way that compromised the careful consideration of every potential member.

2) Working for Meaningful Membership

Spurgeon didn’t want to simply have people on the church rolls. He wanted to make sure Metropolitan’s church members continued in their profession of faith. In his last sermon to the Pastors’ College, Spurgeon urged his students,

Let us not keep names on our books when they are only names. Certain of the good old people like to keep them there, and cannot bear to have them removed; but when you do not know where individuals are, nor what they are, how can you count them? They are gone to America, or Australia, or to heaven, but as far as your roll is concerned they are with you still. Is this a right thing? It may not be possible to be absolutely accurate, but let us aim at it. . . . Keep your church real and effective, or make no report. A merely nominal church is a lie. Let it be what it professes to be.[3]

In a church of thousands, one of the ways Spurgeon pursued this was by tracking those who regularly came to the Lord’s Table. Upon joining the church, members were given a communion card, divided by perforation into twelve numbered parts, one of which was to be delivered every month at the communion. These tickets would be checked by the elders, and if any member was “absent more than three months without any known cause, the elder in whose district he resides is requested to visit him, and send in a report.”[4]

Often, in these visits, the elders would uncover pastoral needs. They’d find members who had drifted away from the faith, joined another church, or simply moved away. In every case, this prudential choice enabled the church to work toward meaningful membership either by providing better care and discipleship, or by removing some members from the membership.

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