Membership Reckoned by Household

Topic: Ecclesiology Some time ago (February) a friend recently asked about the policy of Christ the Redeemer Church which "normally reckons church membership by household." I started this blog entry then but didn't post it. Since then, it has come up again so I thought I'd go ahead and post it now that it's October. The friend's questions included some of these concerns:

• Doesn't our policy imply that we think there is "still male and female" though the Bible says there is "no longer male and female"?
• Where in the New Testament is there anything about membership by household?
• Are we implying a Mormon "chain of being" view of the Christian family?
• Aren't we denying the church the wisdom of women voting?
• Haven't we drunk to deeply at the well of Doug Phillips?
• Aren't we too "patriarchal"?

Preliminary thoughts:

• Acts 16 and several other places speak of households being added, or being saved. It doesn't say Sally, and Bill, and their children Susie and Mick. Just households. Sometimes (the Phillipian jailer) it is a male head of household; sometimes (Lydia) it is a female head of household.
• The Gospel writers reckoned by men, "plus women and children"
• Voting is not of the essence of membership; the elders rule the church.
• Sutton posits a grammatical point at Mt. 28:19-20 regarding gender disagreement between "nations" and "them".