On Higg’s blog he has a discussion of “placing membership.” I don’t like the phrase but the concept is proper and biblical, and Steve makes a good comparison over there.
In a comment of mine, I popped out a couplet to express a thought in a previous comment left by a preacher:
Without discipleship or God’s good works,
The non-commitment crowd wants all the perks.
In looking for a church pic, I noticed most church sites have a building and not a group. Maybe we need to work on that, too. Building-centered churches may inhibit members of the body of Christ from a sense of belonging and a full participation as coworkers of God.