If you merely attend church, I encourage you to join a church so that you can experience the vital joys of oversight, of guarding and being guarded, of discipling others, and of displaying Christ.

How pleasant it is when a church family lives together in harmony (Psalm 133:1). For those of us who have tasted and seen the goodness of God in our church fellowship, we deeply desire our Christian friends to experience the same. But many of our friends believe attendance is enough, especially when supplemented with the wealth of resources Christians have online.

The plethora of sermons, articles, and podcasts available today causes some to question if committing to a church family is even necessary. Why should you commit to a local church? Why should you refuse to settle for merely showing up, listening, and going home, instead of investing in something more costly?

We commit to formal church membership to experience God’s goodness in providing vital joy. By vital I mean necessary for Christian obedience and therefore a thriving spiritual life. By joy I mean savoring the worth of God in the experience of mutual church accountability. Let’s consider the vital joys of oversight, protection, discipling, and displaying.

The Vital Joy of Shepherding

The Lord commands his people, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you” (Hebrews 13:17). But how will our leaders truly care for and give an account for our souls if we have not made ourselves accountable through membership? How does a shepherd do his work when he doesn’t know which sheep are his?

As great as online preachers may be, they do not (and cannot) keep watch over our souls. Even if we attend one church regularly, but have not officially placed ourselves under the leadership of that church, then our pastors cannot carry out what this verse demands of them. And what a blessed obligation it is! But if we commit to the church, we have the blessing of leaders watching over our souls.

Pastors are responsible before Jesus, the chief Pastor (1 Peter 5:4), to “watch over your soul.” While that may initially sound intrusive, realize that they watch over you “as those who will have to give an account” to God on judgment day. They don’t have free rein to arbitrarily satisfy all their curiosities and preferences through the church. When members of a church have pastors who are sensitive to the weight of divine accounting, watching over their flock with care, they are immensely blessed.

To skip or put off membership is to surrender a depth and durability of shepherding care we would have enjoyed otherwise.

The Vital Joy of Church Discipline

Christ lovingly calls us to enjoy him in the impossible task of seeing to it that no one in our churches falls short of the grace of God through sexual immorality or other sins (Hebrews 12:15–16). How can we “see to it” that they don’t fall short?

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