"When senior pastor Mark Dever preached his first sermon at CHBC in October of 1994, the church had 130 members — most of them in their 70s and 80s. Today, the church is thriving with nearly 550 members of all ages and 800 in attendance on Sunday mornings.
How did Dever accomplish the envious task of attracting Capitol Hill's young and influential? Not through slick programming or a coffee shop atmosphere. "By God's grace," Dever says, "through the singing of old hymns and the preaching of hour-long expositional sermons, young people started coming. Strangely enough." And don't forget membership.
Visit CHBC's Web site, and you will see a "How to Join" button. Membership is clearly a priority. Reading through the requirements for membership — the confession of conversion, the signing of a doctrinal statement and covenant, an interview with the pastor and elders, a voting in at the members' meeting — one might bristle at the seeming exclusivity. The process seems formal and calculated. Judgmental even.
But spend a few minutes talking with 47-year-old Dever, and his passion for the value of such a process becomes clear. "There are a lot of churches you can go to where your Christianity is still a very private affair," Dever says. "I don't think church is supposed to be like that."
Dever, author of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and executive director of 9Marks Ministries, believes church membership is a biblical mandate. Without the establishment of a covenant, he points out, how can a church enact the command to break fellowship with an unrepentant sinner?
"We have to realize it's possible for us to deceive ourselves," Dever says. As an example, he cites the circumstances recorded in 1 Corinthians 5, where a man who was in the church was sleeping with his father's wife.
"That guy clearly thought he was a Christian," Dever says. "How is he supposed to know he's not unless the church is part of it?" This provides support for church membership, because, according to the 9Marks Ministries Web site, "Formal exclusion presupposes formal inclusion."
A church's responsibility to its members doesn't end with accountability and discipline, Dever points out. It must also provide an environment that encourages, celebrates, instructs and loves."
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