CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

If you know you'd like to become a member follow the steps below, if you're unsure read the Why Church Membership below. If you have any questions give us a call, we'd love to help you understand membership.

Step One. Fill out the Membership Form.

Step Two. Read through the MPC Membership Document.

Step Three. Ask Brian to arrange a meeting with he and Travis for a membership interview. It's nothing scary, we just want to hear about who Jesus is to you and learn more of how we can serve you as a church how you can serve as part of the Covenant Community (the church). brian@manhattanpres.com

WHY CHURCH MEMBERSHIP?

This was taken and edited from a document Kevin DeYoung wrote on Church Membership.

Often membership sounds stuffy and a little too authoritarian, it can make some feel uncomfortable wishing simply to come when they can. Nowhere in Scripture do we see Christianity apart from commitment to community, we need community and we need to know what the expectations of that community are. Here are a few reasons why Church Membership is important for you, your family and the rest of the church.

1. Just like marriage is a bigger commitment than dating so church membership is a bigger commitment than attending. When you join in membership you are making a visible commitment to Christ and His Church. It’s you saying this is my covenant family, these are my people, I am committed to Christ and I am committed to them.

We often speak of how much we desire community in our lives, this is a step towards that commitment and that blessing. You won’t do it perfect, neither will anyone else, but it is a statement of being apart of this community.

2. It’s counter cultural, we live in a world that is afraid to commit to anything, we wish to be a church that doesn’t just reflect the culture, but challenges it. Committing to a local church will help you understand what commitment is both to you and from you to others.

3. Church membership keeps us accountable to each other. When we join a church we are offering ourselves to one another to be encouraged, rebuked, corrected, and served. We are placing ourselves under leaders and submitting to their authority (Heb. 13:7). We are saying, “I am here to stay. I want to help you grow in godliness. Will you help me to do the same?”

In this we let the elders know that we are committed to attend worship, to giving, to prayer for the covenant community, to serving the church body, to sanctification. In membership we say I want you to be responsible for me, call me out, ask how I am, help me work through sin, through shame, through depression through whatever I might face in this life and don’t let me walk away. It means if it comes to it, you want Church discipline because the goal of discipline isn’t punishment, it’s restoration.

4. Similarly, Joining the church in membership will help your pastor and elders be more faithful shepherds. Hebrews 13:7 says “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” That’s your part. Here’s ours: “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.” We take seriously our responsibility before God to watch over your souls. I’ll say when people simply show up it’s hard to know what my place in their life is, the lack of commitment often communicates “my life is none of your business," but when they are committed it lets me know that you want the church in your life and so it shall be.

5. Joining the church gives you an opportunity to make promises. When you become a member at Manhattan Presbyterian Church, you make promises to pray, give, serve, attend worship, seek the spiritual guidance of the church, obey its teachings, and seek the things that make for unity, purity, and peace. We ought not to make these promises lightly. They are solemn vows. And we must hold each other to them. If you don’t join the church, you may miss an opportunity to publicly make these promises, and in so doing, invite the elders and the rest of the body to hold you to these promises–which would be missing out on great spiritual benefit, for you and for us.