Receiving New Church Members

Dear church, last Sunday evening, during our service, we were delighted to welcome a new group of brothers and sisters into our church family. Today, we want to remind you to notice these new members and show them special attention and love. Below you will find a few practical steps that you can take.

1) Invite them to your home. This is a wonderful way to get to know them, pray together, and perhaps answer any of their questions (1 Pet. 4:9).
2) Ask them about their needs so that you could potentially help where you can or at a minimum begin praying regularly for them. At the bottom of this letter you will find their photos and names.
3) Invite them to your home group. Help them become acquainted with more people.
4) Invite them to your ministry. God has blessed our church with many ministries, and if you invite them and they have a desire and ability to serve, this will become a blessing for all.
5) Whenever you go out for the weekend, invite someone to go along with you. Vacation is a good time to spend with others. This is a relationship.
6) If you yourself need help, humbly ask the new members. We’re all called to serve. Oftentimes it can be more difficult to ask for help, rather than help someone else! Humble yourselves!
7) Start greeting everyone in the church. This is specifically meant for those who consider themselves to be introverted. Begin with a little. You won’t even notice how with time, even simple greetings will lead to substantial discussions.

Remember, these things are not simply good manners or good Christian ethics, they’re a biblical understanding of how to behave in a church:
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb. 10:24-25)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:1-14

• Wednesday (7:00 PM) Prayer Service in English
• Thursday (7:00 PM) Prayer Service in Russian
• Sunday services:
  • Worship Service in Russian at 9:00 AM
  • Worship Service in English at 11:15 AM