Membership
Becoming a member of a church is an important decision. Church membership involves much more than just attending weekly services. Those who join MSBC commit themselves to becoming part of a spiritual family that cares for one another, seeks to spread the gospel, and serves our community.
Steps to Membership
Step 1: Indicate Interest to Pursue Membership – A candidate for membership may express interest in joining Monte Sano Baptist by notifying the pastor.
Step 2: Receive and Read our MSBC 101 Packet — This material goes into detail about what we believe at Monte Sano Baptist and what church membership is all about. Reading it will give you an opportunity to learn more about who we are and what is important to us as a church.
Step 3: Participate in a Prospective Membership Interview – This is an opportunity for the pastor to get to know you better, hear about your conversion, baptism, and walk with Christ, as well as answer any questions you may have about Monte Sano Baptist. Several items will be discussed including why it is important to join a church, what a healthy church member looks like, our beliefs, our history, and our vision. During the interview the pastor will also discuss our church covenant with you to be sure you are in agreement with its content and are ready to publicly affirm each of its articles. And, if you not been baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ, this will be a time to schedule an upcoming Sunday for you to be baptized.
Step 4: Receive Congregational Affirmation – New member candidates will be presented to the congregation at the conclusion of a worship service and the pastor will make a recommendation to the congregation that we officially approve each candidate for membership at Monte Sano Baptist. The new members, along with the rest of the congregation, will then publicly affirm our church covenant together.
Church Covenant
Having been led by the Spirit of God to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord by faith, and having publicly confessed by baptism in the name of God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, we freely and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ.
We pledge, therefore, by the aid of God’s Spirit to live together in Christian love, to work for the advancement of God’s Kingdom through this church in knowledge, holiness, and mutual care, to support its ministry by a faithful stewardship of life, talents, time and possessions, and to sustain its worship, ordinances, doctrines and disciplines.
We also pledge to maintain family and private worship, to rear our children in the nurture and spirit of the Lord, to seek the salvation of all members of our families and of our acquaintances, and to strive for maturity in ourselves and in our fellow Christians.
We further pledge to follow Christian principles of morality in our daily living, to be ethical in our dealings and faithful in our commitments, to promote the unity of fellowship by proper attitudes and careful speech, and to be zealous in our efforts toward the advancement of the Kingdom of God here and throughout the world.
We moreover pledge that when we remove from this congregation, we will as soon as possible, unite with some other church, where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word.
