Later today I am due to have a conversation with someone who wants to learn more about church membership.  This is exiciting!

By pure fluke  - or by Holy Spirit timing - or whatever, I came across this blogpost a few minutes age, which stresses the community/corporate nature of 'being a Christian'.  Drawing on Pauline body imagery, it rightly recognises the absurdity - and impossibility - of any body part living in splendid isolation.  The writer is not saying that there a 'personal response' is unecessary, what he is saying, I think, is that this not enough and, in fact, that the natural (and necessary) consequence is to connect in to a local expression of the Body of Christ... something Baptists have traditionally done by Baptism, and continue to do by both Baptisms and Profession of Faith membership.

Worth a read, whether or not you agree!