Membership Course
About Lesson

In the Presbyterian Church in Queensland (PCQ), there are two types of membership:

  • communicant membership

  • adherent membership


A Communicant Member

is a Christian who regularly attends and financially supports the church, who has been baptised, who has made a confession of faith, and who has been admitted by the session (the elders of the church) to participate in the Lord’s Supper, and is therefore in full communion with the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

See Rule 1.3 of the PCQ (Presbyterian Church of Queensland) code:

1.3  A Communicant is a person who:

  1. after baptism and on profession of faith, has been admitted by the Session to participate in the Lord’s Supper, and thereby into full communion with the Presbyterian Church of Australia; or
  2. has been received by the Session on Certificate of Transfer, or on resolution of the Session for special reasons. 

An Adherent Member

is a Christian who regularly attends and financially supports the church, is 16 years or older, is baptised, has made a profession of faith that would entitle them to become a communicant member, but who wishes not to become a communicant member for conscientious reasons.

See Rule 1.5 of the PCQ code:

Adherents are people who have attained the age of sixteen (16) years and over and who:

  1. are baptised people who make such profession of their faith as would entitle them to become Communicants, but who choose not to become Communicants of the Presbyterian Church of Australia by virtue of membership of another Christian Church, or by reasons of conscientious objection, and
  2. worship regularly in the congregation, and
  3. contribute to its support, and
  4. apply to or are invited by the Session to be enrolled. (BB 1996 48.8)

At Ithaca

At Ithaca, we welcome anyone to participate in the Lord’s Supper if they are baptised believers who consider themselves to be sinners in need of salvation and they call the Lord Jesus their Lord and God and King who died for their sins. We stipulate the requirement but then allow the person’s conscience to determine whether they ought to partake or not.

In the old days in the Presbyterian Church, the Lord’s Supper would take place once every quarter, and in the lead up to Communion Sunday, the elders would visit every communicant member’s house to interview them. They would then be issued a card or token that they would redeem on the Communion Sunday to receive the bread and the wine.

We have not continued this practice at Ithaca (and most Presbyterian churches in Queensland have also abandoned it). Nevertheless, the PCQ has retained the terms and categories “communicant member” and “adherent member”, and thus we have as well. Communicant members are Christian members who agree with the teaching of the church and have greater rights and privileges than adherents; adherents are Christian members who seriously object to some aspect of the church’s teaching but are nonetheless Christians.