Step 1: The individual fills out the white card in the worship service requesting membership. Some folks like to walk down the aisle during the invitation to hand me their request for membership, the vast majority simply drop it into the green offering bag during the service. Either way is acceptable.
Step 2: We ask that the person "regularly" (which we define as two or more Sundays/month) attend NEHBC for at least roughly 90 days before joining so that they have a fairly good idea of what we are like.
Step 3: That week, the individual is mailed our Statement of Faith (SOF). A church member must be someone who has given their life to Christ and been baptized by immersion in a church of like faith and practice. The SOF is simply a double sided, 8.5 x 11 form that explains our membership process and asks the prospective member to briefly describe their salvation experience and their baptism experience if they have had one. They can return the completed SOF by dropping it in the green offering bag, mailing it in, or handing it to a staff member.
We review the SOF to see if the person's understanding of salvation is the bible's explanation of salvation. This is the measure we take to try and ensure we have a membership made up of born again believers. I can't tell you what a joy it is to read the diverse testimonies we get--the Lord Jesus really does chase us down and win us to Himself. On rare occasions we get folks who are deeply offended that they are asked to tell us about their salvation and baptism experiences in order to become members--we are not offended by their reluctance to profess faith in Christ as a basis for membership--it just means our membership process worked because it showed them they won't be comfortable at NEHBC. On occasion, this step in the process enables us to lead people to Christ. We will get testimonies describing salvation as something we earn or accomplish and in those instances we meet with the people in person and share the Gospel message with them. Those are sweet moments. The baptism portion is like it.
Step 4: We ask the prospective members to attend a one time, 90 minute class called the Discovery Class. In this setting we provide a brief history of our church, explain our church structure, our vision, our membership expectations, our ministries, etc, and of course there is lots of Q n A.
Once this process is completed, our trustees, with great joy and celebration, vote them into NEHBC membership and the new members are mailed a letter welcoming them to the NEHBC family.
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