Background Checks

It is vital that Churches should check the background of their applicants for membership. Some Churches have no such measures. Some do. Others have "after the fact" measures in place, which is effective means to reverse a membership. I say this having regretted, too many times, that we did not check people's background -- particularly their Church background. It all seemed excusable at the time: This new member was displaced through war. That new member saw a Church's doors close. That one was saved from an unchurched background. And so on. I say from experience: do not easily accept such accounts as reasons enough to forego a check. Yet at the same time, the reverse may also be true. Background checks may yield positive surprises. OBSERVATION: I remember days when transfer certificates and letters of introduction were a more familiar sight.