Becoming a Member

How to Join

Joining Valwood Park is very simple. Each Sunday, we offer a response time after the sermon where you and your family can come forward. You simply let Matt, our pastor, know that you’re interested in joining the church. At the end of the service, he will announce your intention to join, and the church will affirm your decision. After this, Matt will schedule a time with you in the coming weeks to learn more about you, hear your story, answer any remaining questions you have, and help you get plugged into the church.

The Membership Covenant

The decision to Valwood Park is ultimately a covenant between you and us to pursue Christ together. This is our covenant together, as outlined in our church’s foundational documents: 

Having been led as we believe by the Spirit of God to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and, on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we do now in the presence of God and this assembly most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another as one body in Christ.

We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit to walk together in Christian love; to strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort; to promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, doctrines, and discipline; to contribute cheerfully and regularly, as God has prospered us toward its expenses, for the support of a faithful and evangelical ministry among us, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel through the world. In case of difference of opinion in the church, we will strive to avoid a contentious spirit, and if we cannot unanimously agree, we will cheerfully recognize the right of the majority to govern.

We also engage to maintain family and personal devotions; to study diligently the word of God; to religiously educate our children; to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances; to walk circumspectly in the world; to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, endeavoring in purity of heart and good will towards all men to exemplify and commend our holy faith.  We pledge as a church and to each other to take a stand against deeds of the flesh and to live according to the fruit of the Spirit according to Galatians 5:19-26.

We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember one another in prayer, to exhort and encourage each other unto every good word and work; to guard each other’s reputation not needlessly exposing the infirmities of others; to participate in each other’s joys; to aid one another in sickness and distress; to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and Christian courtesy in speech; to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay; to seek to live to the glory of God who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. 

We moreover engage that when we remove from this place we will unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s word.

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