Membership

 

 Membership is about more than attending church meetings or giving a check every month. Members who enter into a covenant with us are called to a higher degree of responsibility, service, and sacrifice for Jesus Christ.  By becoming a Covenant Member you are committing to be part of a spiritual family that will provide support and encouragement in your walk with Christ.  Our elders and leadership pledge to assist our Covenant Members first and foremost, by providing care and counsel as well as pray, teach, and guide as necessary. The reason why membership is a huge deal to us is that if you make that commitment to get plugged in then we understand that you are seeking more than just an hour on Sunday morning. 

 

 

To become a member of Shady Grove we want to know that you have accepted God’s relentless love to save you from the sinful lifestyle that you once pursued and that you have made God’s son Jesus Christ the Savior and Lord of your life. This is the most important issue that we can discuss. Our hope is that Jesus would be more than a topic of discussion and that he would be so much bigger than a Sunday morning sermon or a Wednesday night lesson for you. Here are a few Scripture that back why we stand on this so heavily:   

 

“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”                                                                                                                                                                                      (Romans 5:8-10, ESV)     

 

¹⁶"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)

 

As the foundation of this policy, we consider Scripture to clearly highlight the command to be baptized.  While some passages are certainly to be restricted by audience and context, others are much more relevant to universal application to the body.  For example, see the Great Commission as recorded in Matthew 28:18-20.  Second, see Peter’s sermon at Pentecost.  Lest we interpret the sermon as solely applying to the gathered audience of Jews, we find further evidence in Acts 10:48 of Peter commanding Gentiles to be baptized.  To be perfectly honest, the idea of a non-baptized “Christian” in the times of the epistles was completely foreign.  In fact, in many of Paul’s writings, he uses baptism into Christ as a euphemism for salvation (Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27).  This serves to further reinforce that baptism, while not being necessary to attain salvation, is the natural overflow and result of such redemption.  In other words, we believe that all of God’s people at all times in all places should pursue baptism as an expression of obedience to Scripture and the God Who authored it.

 

*Please understand that this is not a legalistic or just a random thing that we desire for you to do, but we have these requirements in place, because the Bible has set the standard not Shady Grove Church.  

 

What is the church? Contrary to popular southern belief “the church” is not a building. The church is all true believers in Jesus Christ that function in accordance to God’s word to further the Kingdom of God on this earth. So, the misconception is that church is merely a building, but the Bible speaks of the church as the people of God’s kingdom and not the place where they meet. We can have church anywhere we would like, we just happen to meet here in a building.   

 

How does Shady Grove fit into the picture? God has people of every background, race, age, and country that have made decisions, because he has reconciled people to Himself that are a part of the global church. We here at Shady Grove consider ourselves a small part of that global body of God’s people. We consider ourselves a community of believers that is doing the work of Jesus right here in the Opelika-Auburn area. We are not the only Christians and we would never claim that. We desire to work with other bodies of believers to accomplish the work of Jesus Christ in a world that needs love and compassion. Here at Shady Grove, we desire to do life together. That means that we want to hear about the struggles and issues that you are going through, and we want to bear each other’s burdens. We desire to fellowship and spend time in each other’s homes. We want to love on each other and be encouraging and hold one another accountable. This is how the body of Jesus should look.