Our Church Covenant, pt. II

Read pt. I here. 

Read Church Covenant here. 

We joyful commit to the following privileges and responsibilities, believing them to be the basics of being part of Christ in His local body:

3.1.
We engage, therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk together in Christian love;

​To engage (think marital engagement or embarking on a serious project) is to throw your utmost effort and commitment into something. To engage in Christian love, a love which must proceed from God and be borne as a fruit of the Spirit, surely requires the help of the Holy Spirit. Only He can help us attain anything in the Christian life, for apart from Him we can do nothing (Jn 15).​

3.2.
To strive for the advancement of this church, in knowledge, holiness, and comfort;

To strive is likewise to be so committed to something that one works hard at it. We love the Church because Christ loved the Church; to love the Church is to love Christ (Eph 5). Yet as much as we are part of the international and heavenly spiritual body of Christ, that needs to be made visible. While we can have fellowship with all local bodies, our finiteness means we express our universal membership locally. We would be spread too thin if we tried to be everything to every church and so the Lord would have us focus our attention to the local body of which we are a part. 

​To advance, or forward, the knowledge of the church primarily means its biblical knowledge. As we together seek to advance and conform to the teachings of Scripture the Church as a whole will grow in holiness. It is amazing to see how a church can, say, grow together through a sermon series. When we are holy and walking in the Lord’s ways we will be healthy and therefore comforted by peace and unity, with God and each other.

3.3.
To promote its prosperity and spirituality; to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines;

​We want to do everything reasonably possible to promote the physical or spiritual prosperity of our local church because we love it. We do this by serving the upkeep of the building, being involved in and giving to its ministries, inviting others to our church and advancing our reputation (many of which will be unpacked in latter articles). Chiefly, we support the church by being present and active in the body, particularly, attending all its worship (the body is encourage or discouraged in how you choose to be present or absent), and every other element that is the vital core of a church: the ordinances and then discipline that form the gateway and continuance of membership and health of her members, and doctrine, which likewise informs her health and upon which the true church stands or falls (Jude 3). We want to promote all that is vital to the health of a local congregation. If we are to be healthy she must be healthy (and visa versa).