Church membership

One of the great problems in Anglican (Church of England) churches is that anyone can become a 'member' of the church by signing the electoral roll. If you live in the parish, you don't even have to attend church more than a couple of times a year. Yes, you should have been confirmed (or the equivalent), but let's face it, for many people that was a mere formality - a rite of passage - in their teenage years, and meant very little.

Free or independant churches have a more rigorous membership with various requirements (e.g. signing a statement of faith, believer's baptism, attendance at membership classes etc.), and for those of us in the Anglican church it's very easy to look across the fence and think the grass is greener - that a membership scheme will solve all the problems of a lack of commitment. And certainly many recent & excellent books about the church recommend this. But not long ago I was talking to someone in a pentecostal church that has a membership scheme who was expressing just this same frustration - people turn up at church as and when it's convenient and think they're committed to the body of Christ. They imagine that this kind of service & worship, which is given so long as there's nothing better to do, is appropriate for the Eternal Son of God who suffered, died, rose and ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

So the question is this; would a rigorous church membership scheme help people to realise the privileges and responsibilities of being a member of the body of Christ?
It may do. It is well documented that if it's hard to join something, people feel a greater sense of layalty to the organisation. But we're in danger of imposing man-made rules on Christ's church. While the Bible does speak of individuals as 'parts' of the body of Christ (eyes, hands, feet etc. in 1 Cor 12), and it does insist that persistently immoral people should be expelled (1 Cor 5), and of the need for adherence to the faith (1 John), these are not quite the same as a membership scheme. We must not become latter-day Pharisees, making it more difficult to join the church than Christ would want us to do. In any case, in the Church of England, it's difficult to see how such a membership could be established and maintained alongside the statutory Electoral Roll.

And yet... there's still a part of me that wants to recognise both the benefits of being a member and also the responsibilities. Perhaps we have to leave these things to God working by his word and Spirit in the lives of individuals...