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NEW MEMBERS CLASS
Welcome to the life and ministry of the Shiloh Baptist Church!
To those of you who are new converts, your decision to receive and confess Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior has brought you into a wonderful, new experience and relationship. Because of Jesus Christ and by His Holy Spirit, you have entered through the gateway of salvation into the Christian life. On the other side of the gateway of salvation, spiritual joys await you.
Becoming a Christian and entering the Christian life causes a person to have direction and purpose in life. You have experienced spiritual awakening and therefore are now capable, byway of the Holy Spirit, to understand the Scriptures ( 1 Corinthians 2:9-16).
When you became a Christian, you entered into a unique relationship. This is the relationship between a just and loving God and a sinner saved by grace. It is an intimate relationship wherein you became His and He became yours, locked together in an eternal fellowship.
For those of you who united with the Shiloh Family by Letter, Christian Experience (Restoration), or Watch Care, we welcome you as well. Your membership with this church family will be exciting and edifying. Your talents, time, testimony and treasure will enable Shiloh to do more with her ministries and help us render better service to the community. We encourage you to find your place in this family, and to do your best in serving the Lord. Our goal for you is that you "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18).
We welcome your suggestions and are available to answer your questions. May God bless you and keep you is our prayer.
INTRODUCTION
The New Membership Training process, of the Shiloh Baptist Church, meets every Sunday morning at 9:00 to 10:15 A.M. for all persons who have been received as members into this church. New members are those who come as a candidate for baptism; those who come by Letter (because they are coming from another Baptist Church); those who come by Christian experience (because they are coming from another Baptist Church and cannot receive a letter from that church); those coming from another denomination who have not been immersed in water will be baptized; those who restore their membership - they were members but were inactive for a period of time; and those who come by Watch Care. Persons joining the church by Watch Care will be entitled to some rights and privileges, except holding an office, and voting. Deuteronomy 31:11-13 gives focus to our new membership study. It says: "When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law; and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess" (NKJV).
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