How Do You become Smith Chapel member?

Becoming a member at Smith Chapel begins with a desire to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Being baptized and joining our church to keep the vows of our *BAPTISMAL COVENANT

are the first steps to becoming a member. It requires regular participation in the Sunday worship service and the church's life to complete your membership at Smith Chapel.

OUT BAPTISMAL COVENANT INCLUDES:

Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of your sin?

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression?

Do you confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve Him as your Lord?

Will you remain faithful members of Christ’s Holy Church and serve as Christ’s representatives in the world?

Will you be loyal to Christ through Smith Chapel church and do all in your power to strengthen its ministries?

Will you faithfully participate in our ministries by your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness?

Do you receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?

eleven Reasons Why Membership Matters

1) It’s biblical.

3) It’s how to officially represent Jesus.

2) The church is its members.

Jesus established the local church and all the apostles did their ministry through it. The Christian life in the New Testament is church life. Christians today should expect and desire the same.

2) The church is its members.

3) It’s how to officially represent Jesus.

2) The church is its members.

To be “a church” in the New Testament is to be one of its members (read through Acts). And you want to be part of the church because that’s who Jesus came to rescue and reconcile to himself.

3) It’s how to officially represent Jesus.

4) It’s how to declare one’s highest allegiance.

Membership is the church’s affirmation that you are a citizen of Christ’s kingdom and therefore a card-carrying Jesus Representative before the nations. And you want to be an official Jesus Representative. Closely related to this . . .

4) It’s how to declare one’s highest allegiance.

5) It’s how to embody and experience biblical images.

4) It’s how to declare one’s highest allegiance.

Your membership on the team, which becomes visible when you wear the “jersey,” is a public testimony that your highest allegiance belongs to Jesus. Trials and persecution may come, but your only words are, “I am with Jesus.”

5) It’s how to embody and experience biblical images.

It’s within the accountability structures of the local church that Christians live out or embody what it means to be the “body of Christ,” the “temple of the Spirit,” the “family of God,” and so on for all the biblical metaphors (see 1 Cor. 12). And you want to experience the interconnectivity of his body, the spiritual fullness of his temple, and the safety and intimacy and shared identity of his family.

6) It’s how to serve other Christians.

7) It’s how to follow Christian leaders.

Membership helps you to know which Christians on planet Earth you are specifically responsible to love, serve, warn, and encourage. It enables you to fulfill your biblical responsibilities to Christ’s body (for example, see Eph. 4:11-16; 25-32).

7) It’s how to follow Christian leaders.

Membership helps you to know which Christian leaders on planet Earth you are called to obey and follow. Again, it allows you to fulfill your biblical responsibility to them (see Heb. 13:7; 17).

8) It helps Christian leaders lead.

7) It’s how to follow Christian leaders.

8) It helps Christian leaders lead.

Membership lets Christian leaders know which Christians on Planet Earth they will “give an account” for (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2).

9) It enables church discipline.

11) It builds a witness and invites the nations.

8) It helps Christian leaders lead.

It gives you the biblically prescribed place to participate in the work of church discipline responsibly, wisely, and lovingly (1 Cor. 5).

10) It gives structure to the Christian life.

11) It builds a witness and invites the nations.

Membership puts the alternative rule of Christ on display for the watching universe (see Matt. 5:13; John 13:34-35; Eph. 3:10; 1 Peter 2:9-12). The very boundaries which are drawn around the membership of a church yields a society of people which invites the nations to something better.