- Peter Adelaja Oyebanjo, Ph.D. & Emmanuel Olawale Adekanbi
- DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16833774
- GAS Journal of Religious Studies (GASJRS)
Dual membership is a phenomenon that calls for intellectual debate in the contemporary society in Nigeria.Existing literatures had discussed on Church membership with little or no discourse on the evaluation of John 1:35 – 39 and its implications for Christians in the selected Churches in Sagamu. This study examined the impact of dual membership and church growth among selected churches in Sagamu, with inference to biblical evaluation of John 1:35 – 39with a view to examining the biblical perspectives to dual membership and its implications for Church growth.Qualitative method was employed to gather data both in primary and secondary sources. The primary source includesan exegetical evaluation of John 1:35 – 39 which was supported by unstructured interview of 25 randomly selected people among the selected Churches. The secondary source included Bible commentaries, books, journals, articles, internet sources. The data collected were analyzed using content analysis.Dual membership was not biblical rather the pericope encouraged the total switch of disciples in-betweenJesus and John. It is observed that dual membership though not biblical, is a new trend among Christian Churches in Sagamu due to various reasons such as geographical locations, seeking of miracles, varieties in worship, charismatic leadership, family ties and diversity of beliefs. The study concludes that dual membership is erroneously assumed to be a channel of Church growth. The study recommends among others, Christian discipleship, intentional Bible teaching, doctrinal formulations in line with the Bible and loyalty to a particular denomination.