September 2023

Belonging, Behaving, Believing 

A few of you may have heard of Diana Bass Butler. Popular in many Presbyterian circles, she is an accomplished author and astute observer of current trends in the Protestant mainline. Recently, she commented on patterns of church membership. She pointed out that among the older generations the order in which one became member of a local church was “believe, behave, belong.” That is, when people found a church they liked, they approached the pastor (or elders) to inquire about membership. Once convinced that the people behaved in a manner worthy of membership in the church, the pastor enrolled them in a class for new members. In the class, the people learned the history and doctrine of the church, and at the end pledged their assent to what the church believed. If already baptized, they later had to stand up during worship on a Sunday designated for receiving new members, so that the congregation could acknowledge that they now fully belonged to the community. One presumes that so long as their conduct conformed to the behavioral norms of the group, they maintained their membership in the church in good standing. In this regard, it may be more accurate to say “believe, belong, behave.” But I digress. 

Butler suggests that this order ought to be reversed to address better the spiritual longings of our time. From a recent post in her substack The Cottage, she writes that “instead of believing, behaving, and belonging, we need to reverse the order to belonging, behaving, and believing….This shift is from an external and individual sense of belonging toward an internalized and relational [one]. The shift is also far more biblical than the older model. After all, Jesus said, ‘Follow me,’ ‘not ‘join a church.’ And, as in the New Testament, following comes first. Friendship comes first. Leaving your old self at the side of the lake and discovering who you really are in a community of love, learning, and service is the vision of the gospels. ‘Behaving’ and ‘believing” come as you find yourself on the journey.

Bass makes a good case, though it is no longer clear that a summons to the churches to do this is really needed. Most churches in the Protestant mainline with which I am familiar have already adopted this model willy-nilly. The critical question that we must put to her, however, is whether “behaving” and “believing” just “come” as a result of “belonging.” My experience is that they really don’t. In fact, the inability of Christians to articulate adequately what they believe has been cited as a factor in church decline. One young woman recounted how she became a skeptic because what she heard in her catechism class wasn’t making sense to her. Her questions aggravated the teacher. One night, as she was about to raise another question, the teacher interrupted her and said: “if you have so many questions, maybe you’re not in the right place.” She said she couldn’t agree more and walked out. When she got home, she told her mom she was done with catechism and church. One can’t help but conclude that if the teacher was properly instructed in the faith, he could have answered her questions, or at least pointed her to someone who could. 

By all means, let us embrace the model that Diana Bass Butler proposes, as in fact we already are. But let us also be intentional about helping those who are with us on the journey to learn the deep truths of our faith, truths that transform both our thinking and our doing. 

Blessings to you, 

Pastor Chris