At Immanuel Baptist Church we believe the Bible commands all Christians to be meeting regularly with a community of other believers (Hebrews 10:24). The New Testament doesn’t seem to know what a ‘lone ranger’ Christian is. In fact we are convinced the Bible indicates that Christians ought to be joined in some form of committed membership to a biblically ordered local church. For instance, most of the letters in the New Testament were written to local congregations in cities or regions like Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae, or Philippi. These churches consisted of defined groups of people who were members of the church. They clearly knew who was ‘in’ the church (i.e. ‘a member’), because sometimes they were called to discipline someone by putting them ‘out’ of the church (1 Corinthians 5:13). And these defined groups of Christians (local churches) had established structures of authority and governance. They had elders who shepherded them and deacons who served them (Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1). So we believe the clear model of the Bible is that Christians should be living out their faith as members of a local church which is ordered according to the standards of Scripture. In fact, we are convinced that church membership is God’s ordained way of providing each Christian with oversight, accountability, the ministry of the word, and mutual fellowship that is vital to spiritual growth.

For a complete description of the membership policies of IBC see Article VI of the church constitution. The following is simply an informal summary of the basic steps a person must take to join the Immanuel Baptist Church. This will help you get familiar with the process

Anyone who desires to join IBC should obtain, fill out, and submit a membership application form to the church office. You can to do this at any time. However, if you want to find out more about the church before applying then attend the membership class first.

When the elders deem it helpful membership classes are held to facilitate membership applications. These are organized at the discretion of the elders. Attending the class does not obligate you to join the church.

Upon submitting a membership application each prospective member will be interviewed by an elder. The goal of this interview is for the elders to get to know the applicant and gain a better understanding of their general spiritual condition. If certain issues arise concerning the applicant that would obstruct their joining the church, then the membership process will be delayed or terminated until things can be worked out.

When steps 1-3 are successfully completed the prospective member will be formally announced at a regular meeting of the church, and the congregation will be given time to get to know the applicant and voice any objections or questions they might have concerning him/her to the elders. Sometime during this period the prospective member will be asked to give a brief public testimony to their conversion during a Sunday school hour. This facilitates the congregation getting to know the person. Finally, if the applicant has not been biblically baptized (i.e. upon profession of faith), he or she must be baptized during this time.

If there are no valid objections at the end of this period the applicant will be publicly received into the membership at a stated meeting of the church, usually the next meeting in which we celebrate the Lord’s supper together.