Week 1 Day 6 -- How to Join

-H-

Day 6 – How to Join the Church (Acts 2:41, 47)

 ⁴¹ Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.

⁴⁷ (They were) praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of believers now totaled about 5,000 men, not counting women and children. (Acts 4:4, NLT)

    The question arises, “How do I join First Baptist Church of Killeen.”

   In summary, you must be saved or “born again.” We explain that as the
“A, B, C’s” of Salvation. Our salvation begins when we first acknowledge or “admit” that we are lost and in need of salvation (Romans 3:23, 6:23). Our sins have separated us from God, and only Jesus Christ can intercede between us as sinful humanity and God who is Holy. When we recognize our sinfulness, we must be willing to repent and turn away from our sinful actions. This begins with a new mindset.

    Secondly, you must believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10). As we mentioned earlier, belief is not just intellectual agreement, but whole-heartedly trusting in the finished work of Christ. He was the One and Only Son of God who died on the cross to take our punishment for sins. You cannot trust your own good works for your salvation.

    Thirdly, you must call to God (Romans 10:13), confessing and forsaking your sins (Romans 10:9-10), committing your life to Him and asking Him through His Holy Spirit to change you from the inside out, conforming you to be like His Son (Romans 8:29).

    If you have accepted eternal life, you also need to be biblically baptized by immersion (the literal definition of baptism) after your salvation. If you were baptized in a church that practiced that baptism was necessary for your salvation, we also would encourage you to be baptized again as a symbol of your salvation and not as a means to gain salvation.

    Also as we learned, baptism means immersion, so if you were sprinkled or poured on or even immersed before your salvation experience, we require you to be immersed in believer’s baptism.

    Lastly, if you have accepted eternal life and have already been biblically baptized, you may join by having another Baptist church send us a letter. If the church cannot be contacted about your membership, you can join by a “statement” in which you on your honor simply state that you have accepted Christ and have been immersed in water after salvation, and that your baptism was not meant to be a way of earning your salvation.

    For a variety of reasons, there are some who would like to be associated with our church, but not officially join as full members. For those, we have a “Watchcare” Fellowship, which means you are coming regularly and participating faithfully but are not officially wanting to partner with us in our church membership. This means there may be some restrictions in teaching in some areas, such as adult LifeGroups, serving on policy committees, and voting in our church business meetings.

    Our desire is that all regular attenders become full members and experience the joyful bond that brings us together as a church body. Once you make your desire of affiliation known, we will place your name at the next church business meeting conference and those present will welcome you in to full church membership. Our church conferences generally meet on the third or fourth Sunday evening of the month.

Week 2, Membership means Interdependence

The chart below shows how we at First Baptist combine our 

“Connect Grow Serve Go” theme of our church
 to the POINT of our LifeGroups being

Prayer in all things, OutReach,
InReach, Need-meeting, and Teaching.