Why is Meaningless Membership Dangerous?

Meaningless membership refers to the common practice of neglecting to tie church membership to specific responsibilities, priorities, expectations, privileges, and sanctions. It is dangerous for the following four reasons.

Meaningless membership sends a confusing witness to the surrounding community.

When we fail to tie membership to specific obligations, we allow people to become members without them feeling any particular obligation or accountability to live and teach as the church lives and teaches.
The poor behavior of many members in such a low accountability environment often taints the church's corporate witness in the community and confuses unbelievers around us about what it means to be a Christian. It makes the church look grossly hypocritical when an immature or unconverted member sins repeatedly in a publicly known way.

Meaningless membership causes division due to the sin of unconverted members.

When we uncritically allow mere verbal professors of Christ to enjoy membership in the local church, such members can become sources of division within the church. The church is a web of mutually sanctifying relationships. One quarrelsome unbeliever can sow many seeds of division by slavery to sins like gossip, anger, lying, and covetousness.
Division is especially likely if the verbal professor of Christianity has natural teaching ability and is able to propound his own views over against those of the church by teaching Sunday Schools or leading Bible studies with false motives. When this happens, meaningless membership has led to the infiltration of false teachers.