Prominent evangelical Christian Chuck Colson has a different take. The proposition is ludicrous. Membership in a church particular is no more optional than membership in the church universal. Every weekend, more than 17,000 people attend weekend services. While Ashton hopes to reach out to people who have given up on the church, he is also concerned for those people who go from church to church looking for satisfaction.
People see church as a performance for their benefit.
Even though church membership is not mentioned in the pages of Scripture, Bill Hybels says a membership-type commitment is written all over the pages of the New Testament. Hybels, the senior pastor of the huge Willow Creek church and soon to be Ashton's colleague and pastor, said in a recent message that the Willow Creek church, now 25 years old, has revisited the issue of membership. To do this, Hybels and his staff interviewed many people between 20 and 50 who had recently cast their lot with the Willow Creek church. There was almost unanimous agreement that official church membership is extremely significant. People are then interviewed, given a chance to ask questions and finally presented to the church family as members.