What are the theological maturity qualifications for ‘joining the church’? I know the wrong answer. I know churches where you ‘join’ around high school graduation time, so you join and then leave town, maybe never to find your way back to church again.

I was at this Lutheran church in Ithaca. Oh, oh, there was going to be Communion, and I fretted, are Reformed people welcome? I got to the pastor. He asked me the right question, Do you discern the body of the Lord? and I gave him the right answer, Yes I do (I Cor 11:29). So I could join my brothers and sisters at the Table.

That was easy for me. But I am after all Dr. theol. from Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen and proud of it. I can even answer the followup question, how is the body of the Lord here? I know enough not to answer merely spiritually, but always gloriously Spiritually, if asked. But that pastor didn’t ask. Now I begin to wonder, just how old or alert theologically Presbyterian people need to be to give that right answer, with that capital s? Maybe 75? Maybe ordained?

I know that’s silly, but could that open the door to today’s Presbyterian question, what are the theological maturity qualifications for ‘joining the church’? I know the wrong answer. I know churches where you ‘join’ around high school graduation time, so you join and then leave town, maybe never to find your way back to church again. Sometimes it’s linked to learning the Shorter Catechism, maybe at 14. But look at the end of Calvin’s Institutes, where he considers the sacraments we don’t believe in. Confirmation has a lot going for it, doesn’t it? That’s where Calvin says that if the child hasn’t professed by age 10 there’s something wrong with the family.

Knowing the Shorter is a good thing. But are there other good ways of trusting Jesus? Like flowing naturally out of family prayer time? Like basking in your child’s praying in Jesus name? Parents know when that happens, don’t they? Why don’t they just ask a couple elders to drop by and hear that for themselves? Why aren’t there some children ‘on the roll’ at age 3? And sharing the Supper with the rest of us? I could imagine those elders dropping by again when there are too many detentions in second grade, or is that too much loving care?

That’s as far as I can get right now with those paedo-communion questions. I believe in it with all my heart, for ‘paedo-members.’ Does that help to bridge the gap within our churches?

It can get complicated. There are 31 thousand words in our Confession and Catechisms. Maybe some need further clarification. It may be worth the try. But the ground rules for Presbyterians go something like this: we want to listen to what a GA says, but if it’s one of those things that the presbyteries don’t need to consider, then after you listen carefully you don’t have to agree. Pious advice is a good thing—but it’s advice. If we need to go to the next serious step, just what does it mean to ‘strike at the vitals of religion’? In the sense of when should charges be filed, when should someone be removed from the eldership? That’s heavier, isn’t it? But we know how to work with all that. It’s part of normal life, you have conversations in which you don’t agree on everything—but then you say, it was so great being together with you, see you soon.

In the meantime—why are the guests at the Lord’s Table all so old?

D. Clair Davis, a PCA Teaching Elder, is a former professor of church history at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and is now a Professor and Chaplain at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, Texas.