The Difference Between Membership Type and Membership Status

I recently led a Zoom class for United Methodist Membership Secretaries and was asked the question above, “what is the difference between type of membership and status of membership. So here goes.

The type of membership in the United Methodist Church defined by the Book of Discipline. We have 5 types: baptized, professing, affiliate, associate, and constituent.

¶ 215. Definition of Membership—The membership of a local
United Methodist church shall include all people who have been
baptized and all people who have professed their faith.

1. The baptized membership of a local United Methodist
   church shall include all baptized people who have received Christian
   baptism in the local congregation or elsewhere, or whose
   membership has been transferred to the local United Methodist
   church subsequent to baptism in some other congregation.
2. The professing membership of a local United Methodist
   church shall include all baptized people who have come into membership
   by profession of faith through appropriate services of the
   baptismal covenant in the ritual or by transfer from other churches.
3. For statistical purposes, church membership is equated to
   the number of people listed on the roll of professing members.
4. All baptized or professing members of any local United
   Methodist church are members of the worldwide United Methodist
   connection and members of the church universal.

¶ 227. A professing member of The United Methodist Church,
of an affiliated autonomous Methodist or united church, or of a
Methodist church that has a concordat agreement with The United
Methodist Church, who resides for an extended period in a city or
community at a distance from the member’s home church, may
on request be enrolled as an affiliate member of a United Methodist
church located in the vicinity of the temporary residence.
The home pastor shall be notified of the affiliate membership.
Such membership shall entitle the person to the fellowship of that
church, to its pastoral care and oversight, and to participation in
its activities, including the holding of office; except such as would
allow one to vote in a United Methodist body other than the local
church. However, that person shall be counted and reported as a
professing member of the home church only. A member of another
denomination may become an associate member under the same
conditions, but may not become a voting member of the church
council.3

¶ 230.3. The Constituency Roll, containing the names and addresses of
such persons as are not members of the church concerned, including
unbaptized children, youth, and adults whose names are not
on the membership record, and other nonmembers for whom the
local church has pastoral responsibility.

Membership Status, on the other hand, is defined by the local church and has more to do with a members participation.

Typical definitions of status my include:

Active
Inactive
Homebound
Military
School (College)
Nursing Home
Institutionalized

You get the idea. While membership type and membership status are different, they go together to help the congregation fulfill their membership vows to care for each other.

I hope this helps.