Thom Rainer’s I Am A Church Member (Nashville: B&H, 2013)
is a helpful little booklet that sets forth a healthy Christian attitude towards church membership. It isn’t a detailed theological treatise about church membership, but it is a good and straightforward introduction to biblical church membership. It is written in clear language, is quite short (less than 80 small pages), and gives a decent summary of how a Christian should be an active member of a local church. At the end of each short chapter is a set of questions and a pledge for each Christian to make as a member of a church.
I appreciated how Rainer applied the gospel throughout the book. I also appreciated the pastoral warmth that was evident in the book. I was convicted by Rainer’s frank admission that we can blame the church’s decline in the last 20 or 30 years on several…