Sherri – excellent questions! Contracts and covenants are much the same thing – agreements that impose performance requirements on all the parties involve.
For the general membership there need be no contracts if one gives assent to the precept that there is but one One Lord, one faith, one baptism, (
Eph 4:5) and that
Jesus Christ is not fragmented into little serfdoms (.1 Cor 1:13 +), as we are so prone to fracture Him up in our churches today.
A membership contract is unnecessary, for the same reason that from silence, none of the original 120 (members and “ministers”) or the 3,000 who joined the church on Pentecost did not line up to sign membership contracts, nor for that matter it does not appear that Paul, Timothy or Titus did. The First Pentecostal Ministerial Alliance of Israel (FPMAI) does not seem to have existed during the first several hundred years or so of the church age. That kind of thing also seems to be another Emperor Constantine era creation.
Now, a membership contract is quite different from a church membership role that is maintained in order to comply with state/federal organizational tax laws and regulations.
As to membership covenants. A covenant is a legally binding contract between two or more parties that require specific performances to be accomplished by all parties concerned. Failure to live up to one’s covenant obligations frequently results in a death sentence. Much like the blood covenant we have entered into with God through Jesus Christ. My covenant remains until I break it, because God is faithful and He will keep His side of the agreement(s). If I should break covenant with God, then Hell (death) is my reward.
So my response to [individual] membership covenants is: No. For I have a covenant with the entire body of Christ through His personal covenant with me – an obligation that I have accepted. Therefore, I am already in a covenant relationship with you, Shrrri, and with everyone else on this forum (and beyond) who has acknowledged the Jesus Christ is Lord and have turned to Him as both Lord and Master.
The final word is, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” If a member of the assembly proves to be untrustworthy, even to living in unrepentant sin, there are instructions already in existance as to what the congregation is to do with that person.
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