NSMC Membership Covenant

Banner left: Mentors and mentees participate in an egg toss
Banner right: A small group discussion at the church retreat
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Ephesians 2:19-22

Our membership covenant expresses who we are as a community of faith. When a person desires to become a member of our church, the acceptance of this covenant formalizes the new relationship with our church.

Membership Covenant

Responding to God’s gifts to us, we covenant together in our relationship with God, committing ourselves to:

  • seek to conform to Christ in all areas of life, struggling together to understand, follow, and serve him as our Lord in our daily lives;
  • acknowledge and cultivate hunger and thirst for God, expressing this in regular participation in corporate worship and nurtured in our individual lives;
  • spiritual growth through Bible study and prayer.

Acknowledging, respecting and celebrating our diversity, we covenant together in our relationships with each other, committing ourselves to:

  • work together to build a unified Christian community that incorporates our gifts, strengths, and weaknesses, believing that it is in this kind of community we learn God’s way with us;
  • give and receive open and direct communication with each other in a spirit of love and mutual respect;
  • support each other in our needs, challenging each other to faithful living, and relating to each other in love, allowing these to guide the formal structure of our church and permeate our informal life together;
  • actively participate in the life, decision-making, financial support and ministries of the church.
We covenant together in our relationship with God, each other, and the world.

Believing we are called to be witnesses of God’s love, we covenant together in our relationships to the world, committing ourselves to:

  • strive to share the good news of Christ;
  • be peacemakers, which includes nonviolent resolution to all conflicts, living in an environmentally and economically just manner, and being open to changing our lifestyles according to the conflicts and crises they may cause other people in other lands.