All organizations have some sort of requirements for membership and the Church is no different. Most organizations have a code of ethics that the members are supposed to follow, even if that code is unwritten, and the Church is no different. Where the Church does differ from these other groups is in the character and importance of the initiation rituals.
In the Apostolic Church age most of the people who joined were adults. It was to adults that the apostles preached, and it was adults who first accepted the faith. For them, the entrance into the Church was a carefully considered process that culminated in their decision to follow Jesus. Even in cases where the conversion seemed instantaneous, as in Paul's case, it really wasn't. Paul had spent his whole life following God and had studied and prepared for his unexpected encounter with the Risen Lord. Yet, even after the event on the road to Damascus Paul would wait three years before beginning his ministry and public proclamation of Jesus as Lord.
What were the requirements for entering the Church? One had to profess a faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. One had to admit one's sins and ask for forgiveness. One had to reform one's life. Paul describes this as the two-part process of conversion. This process involves not just a turning toward God but also a turning away from sin. This process, inspired by God's movement toward the individual, is initiated and sustained by grace. The grace of conversion is God's call to us. It is, in effect, the gift of faith.
Faith is not a passive element but is, rather, active in nature. This is evidenced by the very reality of faith present in an individual. When called by God through grace we must respond to that call. This response, an action on our part, takes one of three basic forms: we begin to move toward God, we reject the call, or we remain passive awaiting the next call from God. The first two of these are active responses. The former, a movement towards God, is the kind of faith that Paul was talking about, and which we will come to know as belief put in action. At this stage of one's conversion, however, it is little more than an inkling of what will come.
As we move toward God certain elements begin to assert themselves in our lives. First, we become conscious of our need for God. This is nicely expressed in the Beatitudes as "Blessed are the poor in spirit" for those who are truly poor in spirit begin to understand the need for God. If is only when we are filled with a sense of our own importance that we do not need God, and in such a situation we are not "poor in spirit." This movement toward God also brings a desire for a closer contact with others who are seeking God.
The Sacraments of Initiation are used as a way of incorporating individuals into the Body of Christ. We call this "Body of Christ" the "Church" which, sadly, is a poorly defined term in modern usage. It originates in Paul's writings as ekklesia (ekklesia) which means "an assembly of the citizens regularly summoned" (Liddell and Scott's Greek - English Lexicon). As an interesting side note while we're on the etymology of this word, the ordinary assembly in Athens was called the kuriai (kuriai) from which we get the Latin "curia" -- the administrative part of the Vatican.
This ekklesia is, first and foremost, a linking of Jesus and all believers. This link finds its roots in Scripture where Jesus tells us: " I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing." (Jn 15:5) The need for this link is found in the call to faith, and we are "grafted" onto the vine through the Sacraments of Initiation. These three sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, establish the recipient as a member of the "Mystical Body of Christ".
We will examine these three sacraments individually in the next three installments, so we will not address them at this time. This short section is designed to "set up" the descriptions that follow by establishing the "grounds" on which they operate. Note, however, that we will also examine the case of infant baptism as we look at that particular sacrament. We will be looking at both the origins and meanings of the sacrament and will compare its usage in the early Church with the usage today.