Expert: Pastor Don Carpenter - 9/29/2006

Question

My question is this.  If an elderly individual requested to join your church body. The elderly person lived a great distance from their mother church and due to serious illness was unable to attend their previous church. That said church had made no attempt to contact the elderly.  So your church responds accordingly, by sending a request for membership to the elderlys former church.  Yet 30 days have passed without a response, calls and inquiries are made only to find that the church that you were making your request known has no pastor or secretary and that the church has become inactive.  How is the requesting church to respond in receiving or acting upon the request of the elderly and infirm.  What are the proceedures in accepting an application with this sort of situation.  What are the scriptures and church manual readings that pertain to such a predicament.  What happens in a case like this?

Answer
Hi,

Thanks for this very interesting question.  I am not sure what other churches would do, and I do not believe that there are specific scriptures for this particular situation.  In our church we can take a member by transfer of letter (which is preferable) or we can take a baptized, born again believer as a member based upon his or her professed Christian experience.  We have taken in members who came from churches who are now closed without letters of transfer.

I hope that this helps you.

In Christ
Pastor Don