According to Baptist belief the church is composed of those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit and who have been brought to personal and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A living and direct acquaintance with Christ is, therefore, held to be basic to church membership. Negatively, this involves a rejection of the concept that equates a church with a nation. Membership in the church of Christ is not based on the accident or privilege of birth, either in a Christian country or in a Christian family. Positively, this view of church is membership indicates that the church is entered voluntarily and that only believers may participate in its ordinance.
All members are equal in status although they vary in gifts.
The members of the church are joined together by God into a fellowship of life and service under the lordship of Christ. Its members are pledged to live together under his laws and to enter into the fellowship created and maintained by the Holy Spirit. The church conceived of in this way is perceived the most clearly in its local manifestation. Thus, although the church invisible consists of all the redeemed, in heaven and in earth, past, present, and future, it may be truly said that wherever believers are living together in the fellowship of the gospel and under the sovereignty of Christ there is the church. The congregational order of the churches, i.e., the government of the church through the mind of the local congregation, is not to be equated with the humanistic concept of democracy.