“A speaker, an orator, a convener rents a room and directs his speech, his oration, or his meeting in whatever way he deems appropriate and expects his audience to acquiesce. After all, whoever does not like it can stay away or leave. But that is not the situation in the Reformed churches, nor, one might add, in most of the other assemblies of Christ’s church. Only in America and in some of our own small independent churches is there such a free-reining spirit. It is quite common in America, especially in the larger cities, for a minister to start his own church, attract whoever will come, and maintain his church from the contributions that come in. Such a church is thus literally an independent business run by the minister, without any confessional forms and without connections to other churches. It is nothing other than a circle gathering around a talented speaker.”
Abraham Kuyper, “Our Worship”
This is why I’m an advocate of the Parish Model of Church Membership
