Membership at MVCC

Our Biblical Distinctives classes start in September, January and May.

Our Membership Classes happen the last week of Biblical Distinctives. If you have already completed Biblical Distinctives but did not take the Membership Class, contact us below to sign up for the next Membership Class.

Once you have met with a pastor, you can sign the membership document online using the button below.

Membership is a way for someone to express their agreement with the doctrine and practices of Mountain View Community Church (MVCC), their alignment with the mission and vision of MVCC, and their commitment to actively participate in the church the way the Bible calls us to. 

To protect, preserve and promote a healthy biblical culture within the church. Membership is a way for a local church to be intentional and explicit in encouraging those who begin attending toward the Biblical picture of the local church, which often stands in contrast to the American idea of the local church. Church is not a place one attends as a spectator or consumer, but rather an environment where one lives out their Christian calling by being dynamically involved in community, being on mission with God’s people where they live, and proactively using their gifts to for the ministry God has entrusted to them. The goal is not membership, but culture. Therefore membership is a means for accomplishing that goal. 

Membership is simply an added piece that fits at the end of a process we already have in place. This process is like the gentle but intentional current of a river… as you push into the river, its flow is going to take you in a specific direction. The pathway toward membership is as follows:

• Attend – Many people first step into MVCC by attending our weekly gathering. This is where they first get exposed to our culture, our passion for God’s word, our heart for mission in our city, and our love for each other as God’s family. 
• MVCC Connect – At the MVCC Connect gathering that we host several times a year, those who are newer to MVCC get to hear our history, are introduced to our mission and vision, hear about our philosophy of ministry, and are able to ask their questions as they try to decide if MVC is the best local church for them to be a part of. At this gathering, we also encourage people into the next steps for connecting deeper in the church. 
• Community – As people dive into small groups, this is where the culture of our church is most deeply experienced as they dive into the “one anothers” of scripture and use their gifts to serve others and to reach out to those in their spheres of influence. 
• Biblical Distinctives – This class has always been the final step in our intentional pathway. Our Distinctives shape our philosophy of ministry and our culture, and it is important that a person aligns with the Distinctives if they are going to feel comfortable truly investing their lives at MVC. Distinctives has always been a prerequisite for leadership at MVCC and has served to keep us theologically unified as a church over the past three decades. 
• Membership – Membership will sit at the end of this existing process, providing a way for someone to express their agreement, alignment, and commitment for reason articulated below. 

Once a person has walked through this pathway, and if they are interested in expressing their membership, they will meet with a pastor as a final step to process any questions they have. 

• Cultural Reasons – American Christian culture is often at odds with Biblical Christian culture. Our desire is to actively push people away from being spectators and consumers and into God’s design for community and mission and spiritual growth. Membership, and a gentle but intentional process will help us continue to be explicit about God’s design while calling people to experience it. 
• Pastoral Reasons – The pastors at MVCC are undershepherds to Jesus, and accountable to God for the care of those who are a part of MVCC. Membership answers the question, “Who is Mountain View Community Church?” The answer to that question is not a group of people who occasionally attend Sunday services, but rather people who understand God’s design and actively seek to place themselves within it. One aspect of being in the local church is willingly placing oneself under the pastoral care of its leadership. 
• Functional Reasons – In order to function the way God calls us to, it is necessary at times to know who has committed to MVCC, as opposed to the many people who will be more loosely connected with MVCC (such as visitors, newer attenders, friends and family, etc). This is particularly important in carrying out God’s design for church discipline & restoration. This is also important when inviting the church to speak into decisions being made and direction being taken, and when seeking to communicate important information that is sensitive in nature and therefore should not be widely exposed to those who attend MVCC but who aren’t invested at MVCC. 
• Civil Reasons – The biblical convictions and practices we hold to will at times stand in opposition to the broader, popular, cultural norms around us. These convictions do not keep us from lovingly engaging culture. In other words, we don’t expect people who don’t know Jesus to have biblical values or live biblically holy lives. We are not taking our values into culture and trying to moralize people, instead we are taking the gospel to culture and inviting people to be changed by Jesus. But on the flipside, it is important that we are able to embrace and live our values without the culture trying to come into the church and compel us to change or compromise. Formal church membership provides legal protection in a number of ways toward that end, because membership creates an aligned body where our agreement to certain convictions and practices are voluntarily expressed. For example, consider the biblical vs. cultural definition of marriage, which are quite different from one another. Our biblical perspective on marriage is defined in our doctrine, and membership means agreement with those beliefs. This then allows us as a church to teach God’s design and celebrate God’s design and perform weddings that are in accordance with God’s design, and not perform those that aren’t.  We can function according to our convictions and our conscience with some protection from a culture that might want to oppose those freedoms.
• Personal Reasons – We personally benefit when we are asked to be explicit about our commitment to something, because it compels us to follow-through on that commitment. This is important in a world that minimizes personal responsibility and commitment. The desire is to be intentional, not haphazard, in investing our lives into God’s design for the local church. 

Every person who knows Jesus already is a member of the body of Christ. Signing a piece of paper does not make one a member in that way. However, being a member of Christ’s body is not simply a title you carry generically, but rather a role you are called to play specifically. Everyone of us is called to be dynamic members of Christ body through our involvement in a specific local church, where you are experiencing genuine community, where you are known and cared for, and where you are actively using your gifts in ministry. That is the biblical mandate. Formally expressing membership by signing a piece of paper is not a biblical mandate. Again, we are not asking you to sign a piece of paper because we think the Bible calls you to. You don’t become something when you sign a piece of paper, but you do express something. We are asking you to intentionally express your agreement, alignment and commitment in this particular local church for organizational and cultural reasons that will best serve MVCC moving forward. 

We acknowledge that these “requirements” are simply our parameters for how to best manage the process of membership within our church family. These are not meant to be hoops to jump through, but rather are components we believe will best promote the biblical culture we are seeking. In order to be a member, a person must (1) be a believer in Jesus Christ who can clearly articulate the simplicity of the gospel, (2) be baptized, not at MVCC but at some point in their journey, (3) have completed the Biblical Distinctives class and be in alignment with the theology and practices of MVCC, and (4) sign the Membership Commitment. 

We want to be clear that in making baptism a requirement for membership, we are not implying that baptism is a requirement for salvation. Baptism is, however, the biblical way that people express faith in Christ and union with the visible church of Christ. While baptism is not necessary for our salvation, it is something that Christ commands us to do. In our culture, baptism has often been replaced with other means of expressing faith in Christ (such as praying a prayer with someone) or with other experiences when a person was first introduced to Christ (such as a camp, or VBS, or retreat). While those means of expressing faith and those experiences are all good, they should not replace the biblical act that so powerfully illustrates our hope in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that so powerfully acknowledges one’s desire to identify with Christ and His people. In our culture people often come to faith in Christ and are never encouraged to be baptized. This is not the biblical culture, and by including baptism in this process it creates a natural way to encourage people in that direction if they haven’t already done so. 

MVCC holds to a believer’s baptism through immersion as the biblical design. As such we do not baptize babies or children, but rather only those who are actively expressing faith in Jesus on their own and desiring baptism as a fruit of that faith. If a person was baptized as an infant, and has biblical convictions that infant baptism is valid (as many hold within reformed circles), we will not ask them to cross their conscience and be rebaptized. However, they also must know that seeking membership at MVCC means actively supporting our position on baptism and its practice, which will be different than their own conviction. 

We will create a clear delineation within our communication system between members and non-members for effectively communicating various information to those who need to know. We will have quarterly members meetings for the purpose of worshiping and celebrating together, providing updates and discussing big decisions, and addressing any church discipline and restoration issues in our midst. We will also have biennial renewal of membership. 

Rather than assuming ongoing agreement, alignment and commitment, and ending up with a large list of names that begins to mean less and less, we will simply ask people to reaffirm those things on that regular cycle. 

Membership will function similarly to the way our Distinctives class currently does in that it will be a prerequisite for leadership positions in the church. Apart from that, if a person doesn’t want to be a member, their experience at MVCC should not change. They can still actively participate in all aspects of ministry and community without being a member. However, the gentle and intentional current will always lead people toward the idea of membership. 

We understand that this might feel like a big step to some, or that they might have questions they need to process about this. I want you to know that we don’t see this as a win / lose sort of thing. This is simply an invitation. If someone is unsure about membership as we walk through this, we would encourage you to NOT pursue it at this time. Just wait. See what it feels like for our church as we step into it. Take your time to process your questions. Then pursue it in the future if you feel led to do so.

Because there is an established process for membership, we are not thinking of it in terms of age. A person is welcome to pursue membership as early as they understand the idea and are able to pursue the steps of the process (such as complete the Biblical Distinctives class). As such, we don’t anticipate many will seek to pursue membership before their late teen years. For parents, we would trust them to explain the process to their children at the appropriate time, but would caution against trying to encourage their children toward membership at a young age.  

We are seeking overarching alignment, not exact agreement with every single word of our theological positions. We have always functioned this way when it comes to our Distinctives. If a person does not agree with the overall position on a given topic, then MVCC will not be a good church for them over the long haul. But within certain doctrines there is freedom to have slight disagreements in terms of nuance or how that doctrine is applied. This allows people to be in alignment with our theology, yet to still have freedom to be in process. If someone has disagreements with our doctrine but feels aligned enough to want to be a part of what God is doing, we just ask that they commit to honoring and upholding MVCC’s position and seeking unity in the church rather than doctrinal division. To that end, the membership commitment reads as follows… I have completed the Biblical Distinctives class and I align with the theology and practices of MVCC. I have discussed any minor disagreements with a pastor and have concluded that they do not prevent me from pursuing membership.

The membership commitment seeks to simply and clearly articulate what the Bible says about being a healthy member of the body of Christ. It is not meant to be a list of standards by which we are measured, but rather an articulation of the kind of believers we all desire to be as we live together in community. It will not be something people are held accountable to. Our accountability to live what we profess takes place in healthy community as we are known and cared for by those around us. 

The answer to this question is both yes and no. Primarily the answer is no, because the experience of biblical culture and care within MVCC happens in environments of community, which everyone can freely participate in, member or not. At the level of how we love and shepherd and care for each other within Christ’s body, everyone’s experience should be the same. That said, there are a few ways that members will be treated differently…

• Anyone desiring to be a leader within a ministry will need to be a member. 
• When it comes to accessing limited pastoral resources, such as one-on-one counseling, members will be given priority. 
• Members will be engaged more proactively when it comes to discussing and providing input on key decisions or initiatives the pastors are considering. 
• Finally, while all people will be loved in community through the first few steps of church discipline mapped out in Matthew 18:15-17, only members will be pursued through the final step of the process.