Can a person be a member of two different congregations?
Question:
We have a brother who used to worship with us, but eventually he took the gospel to his village, with the help of the congregation where we both worship. Worship services started in his village, with most members being his immediate family. However, he lives in our area but goes to the village every Sunday. He is currently serving as their preacher. Before all that, the church where he lives included him in its building project committee. He attends weekly Bible studies with us and participates in every evangelism effort. The family primarily worships here with us, except that he goes to the village every Sunday. Now he sees himself as a member of both congregations and sometimes wants to be involved in decisions for the church here.
I don't know how you see this idea. He suggested the church can empower members to build shops for them on the church land. And the church can set up a school to be run by brethren. Or possibly allow the brethren to use a portion of the church land to build a school.
I would appreciate your enlightenment on this matter, sir.
I want to help the congregation I work with organize their foundation class: we have children from 2-6 years old, 8-13, and 14 and up. How can the church determine the number of years each of this category should have before transiting to another category? We also have a new convert class. How long can one be in the new convert class?
Thank you, sir.
Answer:
Every Christian is a member of the church in the universal sense. However, each Christian can only be a member of the one congregation he attends and works with. While the brother attends two churches, it sounds more like he regularly teaches lessons for a congregation and lives and works with the congregation you attend. If these two congregations are close, they should join together to form a single larger group. If it is more practical to have two congregations, then the brother should decide which group he wants to work with. There is far more to preaching than delivering a lesson on Sunday morning. See So You Want to be a Preacher? and Preachers.
I would ask the brother where in the Bible he learned that the church is involved in businesses or secular education. The church has duties that are defined for it by God. It is not for men to add things that God did not authorize. See The Work God Gave the Local Church.
Every congregation has a different demographic. The local group has to decide what works best for their group. For example, in La Vista, we tend to divide classes by skills (the ability to recite, read, reason, or study a topic deeply). Physical age gives a rough guess, but ability dictates what can be taught. See What Children Can Learn.
If you can have multiple classes at the same time, select one basic topic and one deeper topic. Encourage the members to choose which they want to attend. There are going to be times that even long-time members will want a refresher. If you want to make sure your new members cover basic topics, then put together material on those topics, and that will dictate how long the class will run.
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