OUR COVENANT

A Church Covenant helps…

  • formalizes the church member’s responsibility as described in the “one another” passages in Scripture. 

  • summarize the primary obligations of a church member.

  • the members understand the importance of their role as a church member.

If someone were to ask, “What do you expect of your church members?” Our answer would be our church covenant. We have put footnotes to each statement to show we expect nothing more than what Scripture assumes of all Christians.

OUR CHURCH COVENANT

 

Believing we have been brought to repentance of sin and faith in Jesus by the Spirit of God, and having been baptized upon our profession of faith, we, the members of Emmaus Church, earnestly and joyfully covenant with each other, working to uphold a faithful evangelical ministry in this church.

We will submit to biblical instruction as we sustain the church’s worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines.

We will examine the Scriptures corporately and privately, that we might grow in faith and speak God’s truth to one another in love as we seek to encourage and build one another up.

We will prayerfully maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, avoiding gossip, slander, and quarreling, while maintaining a readiness for reconciliation.

We will show hospitality to all, while showing partiality to none. 

We will humbly love one another as Christ has loved us, and will forgive one another as God has forgiven us.

We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for each other.

We will rejoice at each others’ happiness and lovingly bear each others’ burdens and sorrows.

We will walk together in brotherly love, exercising an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other, graciously accepting encouragement and admonition.

We will be careful in our daily lives to deny worldliness and ungodly lusts, remembering we have been buried by baptism and raised again from the symbolic grave to lead a new and holy life.

We will, when we sin, confess our sin to God and to those affected, repent, and seek help from fellow saints to put our sin to death.

We will joyfully receive the oversight of the elders and submit ourselves to their instruction, always testing it by the Scriptures, and continually lifting up our leaders in prayer.

We will be faithful in our care of and evangelism to our community, seeking to proclaim the Gospel with love and urgency.

We will contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel to all nations.

We will, if we move from this place, unite with another church as soon as possible, where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word. 

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

 
 

How we distinguish between doctrines (beliefs)

At Emmaus, we believe that all that the Bible teaches (doctrine) is important. But for the glory of Christ, the unity of the church, and our mission, we understand that we must distinguish between those doctrines that are essential to Christianity, those that distinguish us as a church, and those that Christians are free to differ on. We distinguish these doctrines in three categories: core, characteristic, and charity beliefs.

 
 

  • Core beliefs are those doctrines that represent historic and evangelical Christianity. In other words, they are beliefs that are required for someone to be a Christian. Core beliefs include: the deity of Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the Trinity, etc.

  • Characteristic beliefs are those doctrines that characterize Emmaus. In other words, there are other true churches filled with true Christians who might believe differently than we do on these beliefs. Characteristic beliefs include: believer’s baptism, congregational government, etc.

  • Charity beliefs are those beliefs that Christians can agree to disagree on. In other words, we will seek to be charitable with one another on these particular beliefs. Charity beliefs include: alcohol consumption, details on the timing of the second coming of Christ, the Sabbath vs. the Lord’s day, etc. First Corinthians 8 and Romans 14 teach us how we relate to one another regarding charity beliefs.