Covenant Course
Table Leader Guide
I teach from the front. The covenant becomes real at your table. Two sessions, ninety minutes each, and four rounds of conversation that you will lead. This page holds everything you need to lead them well — the flow of each session, every question word for word, coaching for the hard moments, and the materials your guests will be holding.
Your job across these two afternoons is not to re-teach. It is to host a table where honesty is safe — and to notice what needs shepherding afterward.
I carry about sixty of the ninety minutes from the front. The other thirty happen at your table: four rounds across the two sessions, fifteen minutes each, three questions each — twelve questions total. That is the entire facilitation surface, and every question is printed in your guests’ handout and on the screen.
The whole session argues one thing: a short, shared confession — seven statements, on purpose — is the common ground that makes covenant belonging possible, because "you cannot covenant with people you share nothing with."
I open with the two questions the whole course answers — "What does it mean to be the church?" and "What is my part in it?" — then clear the ground: "Not a service provider. Not a social club. What we invite people into is a covenant." I define the word carefully: "a binding, mutual commitment between two parties about how they will treat one another." Not transactional, not "I'll show up as long as I'm getting what I want" — "It's a vow." I also tell the room, out loud, that the table is where the real work happens and that they should bring whatever gets stirred up. So your people arrive at Round One already primed — and maybe a little nervous. Warmth in the first two minutes matters more than anything clever.
The story: in 1954, eleven people began meeting in a sheep barn on the old Boone County Fairgrounds — the property we now call the ARC — with the whole founding vision in one line: "a desire to unite around the truth of God's Word, and to follow Jesus together." I then set Forum inside the Restoration Movement, born in America in the early 1800s from "a simple desire — clear away centuries of accumulated human tradition and get back to the Christianity of the New Testament," with "Jesus at the center and the authority of the Scriptures guiding all that we do." The slide I tell the room is worth memorizing should be memorized by you too: "In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love." I close the block with five instincts, then hand off to your table.
If a table question outruns this list, that's fine. Nobody expects you to be a church historian — capture the question and carry it forward.
"This first round is just about getting to know each other and getting honest about where you're starting from. There are no wrong answers here. Your only job is to talk and to listen. Your table leader will keep time and bring us back together." How I hand it to you
Everyone at your table has an answer to this one; that's the point. Use it to get every voice in the air inside the first five minutes. Go first yourself, briefly — thirty to forty-five seconds models both honesty and length. If one story starts taking the whole round, a warm "I want to make sure we hear everybody before Bradley pulls us back" does the job without embarrassing anyone.
This is where "covenant, not consumer" meets people's actual church histories. Some have been members elsewhere — classes, letters of transfer, congregational votes — and some have never joined anything anywhere. Draw out what membership involved for them and let the contrast with "covenant" do its own work. Don't correct consumer language if you hear it; today this question is diagnostic, not corrective. The course will do the reframing — you just need to hear where each person is starting from.
Expect the whole spread: lifelong Christian Church folks, Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, and people with no church past at all. For several people at your table, the Restoration Movement is about an hour old. You don't need to be an expert — the motto and the five instincts above cover almost everything a table will ask. A question you can't answer is a win, not a failure: write it down, tell them you'll chase it, and bring it to me or into a one-on-one.
The longest teaching stretch of either session — 25 minutes, every statement read word for word, grouped in three movements: The God We Worship (Trinity, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit), The Word & the Gospel (Scripture, Salvation), and Entering & Enduring (how faith begins and continues; the long view). Then the payoff the whole session has been building toward — "Seven — on purpose": "We could have written seventy. We didn't. We drew a circle around what is genuinely essential and left room for liberty on the hundreds of secondary questions Christians have always disagreed about." And the line your Round Two hangs on: these statements are "not a wall to keep people out — the shared foundation that lets very different people belong to one another. You cannot covenant with people you share nothing with." That's what lets "eleven in a barn — or 2,500 across a city" be "one body, instead of a crowd attending the same building."
"Some of these seven statements are going to land easy for you, and some of them might raise a real question, or even a doubt — and I want to say plainly, this is a safe place to say 'I'm not sure I believe that yet.' That's not a disqualification. That's an honest starting point, and your table is exactly the place to say it out loud." How I hand it to you
The question is deliberately double-sided so nobody has to open with a doubt. Take a lap of "easiest" first — it warms the table and puts the seven back on people's lips. Then ask who's willing to name a "hardest." When someone does, thank them by name before anything else happens. Do not fix the doubt at the table: I've just told the room "I'm not sure I believe that yet" is an honest starting point, and your table is where that promise gets proven true. A doctrinal back-and-forth will eat the clock and teach everyone watching that doubt gets debated here. Note it, honor it, and carry it toward the one-on-one.
Nearly everyone has watched doctrine divide — a church split, a family rift, a fence built over a secondary issue. Let those stories breathe; they are the evidence for the very point I just made about drawing the circle around the essentials. If the table stalls, put the motto back on it — "In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love." — and ask which of the three is hardest to actually practice.
The most personal question of the afternoon; treat it that way. Around one table you may have immersed believers, people baptized as infants, people baptized so long ago it feels like someone else's memory, and people never baptized at all. Every one of those is a welcome answer — "where are you in your story?" asks for a location, not a verdict. Never dismiss an infant baptism; for many it's a treasured part of a family's faith story, and the course's claim is not that it was meaningless but that believer's immersion is how Forum receives members. If someone asks, "So does mine count?" — that exact question is what the elder conversation exists for. Offer to have it with them, personally, and don't settle it in front of the table.
I tie the two threads — who we are (a people gathered around God's Word since a sheep barn in 1954) and what we believe (a short, shared confession) — and names the link: the confession is why the covenant works. Then the bridge to next week: "Next week will start with one word: Hesed. God's loyal, covenant love. The love we have received becomes the love we get to live out." Expect people to find you at the door with the things they didn't say at the table. That's not a problem with your round — that's the course working.
Everything this afternoon swings on one hinge — Hesed, God's loyal, covenant-keeping love: the love your people have received from God becomes the love they now live out in commitments, gifts, and accountability.
I open with the word the deck says "holds it all": Hesed — "God's loyal, faithful, covenant-keeping love — poured out on his people even in the middle of their failure. Not based on how they perform. Based on who God is." Then the hinge sentence for the entire afternoon: "The way God has loved us is the pattern for how we now love each other." And its guardrail: "None of it earns God's love. All of it lives in response to it." Keep that sentence in your pocket at the table — when the commitments feel heavy or the accountability block lands hard, this is the frame you bring people back to.
From Romans 12:4-5 — "We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other" — comes the line that carries the block: "We don't become members of an institution. We become members of each other." Colossians 1:18 puts Christ at the head: "the church is not mine to consume, and not mine to control. It's His." Then the part people most often miss: this covenant runs both ways. "Membership is not a one-way list of demands the church loads onto you." Your leadership — elders and staff, two communities of servant-leaders — commits to shepherd (prayer and ministry of the Word, leading from an abiding connection to Jesus, spiritual care) and to serve (stewardship of resources, mutual care and accountability, intentional equipping, engagement in mission and outreach). Sit with the obvious before Round One: you are one of the people making those promises, and Question 3 will ask your table how it feels to live under them. I then walk the seven member commitments (your table has them printed on p. 12 of the booklet), roots them in the church's purpose — to praise and glorify God, display His grace and greatness, and equip the saints (Eph. 1, 3, 4) — and lands the contrast that names the whole course: a contract says "I'll give you X if you give me Y… It exists because I don't fully trust you." A covenant says "I am committing myself to you." That is Hesed. "A covenant of belonging is not a terms-of-service agreement."
What members commit to (booklet p. 12):
What leadership commits to (booklet p. 11):
"This round is about getting honest — both about what you're ready to commit to, and about anything that gives you pause. Pause is allowed here. Say it out loud." How I hand it to you
Send people to page 12 of the booklet so they're choosing from the actual list, not from memory. "Comes most naturally" is the easy half; "stretches you" is where the round earns its keep. Expect the usual honest answers — stewardship, accountability, supporting leadership — and resist the urge to soften anyone's stretch. Naming it is the point. If someone says all seven feel heavy, that isn't a red flag; that's a person taking a covenant seriously. Tell them so.
"In your own words" is the whole assignment — it moves the idea from my mouth into theirs. Listen for the conditional-versus-unconditional line: a contract protects me; a covenant gives me. If the table gets anywhere near "committed not out of leverage, but out of love already received — that's Hesed," the afternoon's work is done. Mostly you need to stay out of the way.
Be honest about the elephant: you are one of the leaders they're being asked to trust. Say so — "this one's about people like me, so be as honest as you want." It clears the air. "More pause" answers are gold and often carry a story; receive them without defending anything. If it helps, point to the mutuality I just taught — leaders are answerable "to God, to each other as leaders, and to this congregation" — but let the relief-stories around the table do most of the persuading. Whoever hesitates here is who you look for at the door after today's accountability block.
Romans 12:1 sets the surprise starting point — offering your actual body and life to God is "truly the way to worship him," so "serving the body is the shape a surrendered life naturally takes." Every gift is given for the body: "The Spirit placed a gift in you on purpose, and the purpose is for those around you." From 1 Corinthians 12 — "the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable" — comes the line people will repeat in the car: "Nobody's grateful for their elbow — until it stops working. Stop waiting to be the hand, or the face. Be the elbow God made you to be." The booklet (pp. 14–15) carries a reference list of every gift the New Testament names, gathered from Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4 — your table will lean on it in Round Two. Then one honest number: 887 serving positions at Forum, and "about 50% of those who gather on a Sunday served last year in some capacity. Encouraging for sure, but not God's design." The block ends with the charge Round Two picks up: "Being a member is not spectating… You have a gift the Spirit gave you on purpose, and this body genuinely needs your part."
"This is the round that can change something real. Your leader is going to help you name a gift and start picturing where you'd use it. Be specific, and let your table speak into what they see in you." How I hand it to you
Open the booklet to the gift list on pages 14–15 — vocabulary rescues this question from blank stares. The second half is the engine: where have others affirmed you? And don't just collect past affirmations — hand out fresh ones. You've watched these people across two sessions; one specific "I've seen you do this" from you or a tablemate can outlast everything else said today. Keep it concrete: encouragement is the text they sent, administration is the spreadsheet they secretly enjoy.
Keep the question's own posture — "where do you sense God might be inviting you" — invitation, not slot-filling. You are not the volunteer desk today, so don't leave the table with assignments; leave it with named directions. If someone lands somewhere specific, offer to help them get connected after class.
The question names its own categories — time, fear, a past bad experience — which gives people permission to be honest. Expect at least one serving-burnout story: over-used and under-thanked somewhere else. Do not answer a burnout story with a signup sheet; honor the wound and the rest it required. The win here is a named barrier, not a solved one — named barriers are exactly what the elder conversation can work with.
Acts 2:42 — the first church "devoted themselves" — and the definition: "Devotion isn't a feeling. It's a commitment that shows up on a calendar." Devotion looks like the one-anothers — love, serve, forgive, encourage, bear with, honor one another — and "you can't do one in the abstract. Each requires actual, specific people. Membership is what makes the one-anothers possible." Then leadership: Hebrews 13:17 ("obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls") paired immediately with 1 Peter 5 ("not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock") — "Shepherds, not bosses. Submitting to that kind of leadership isn't a threat — it's a protection." Then Matthew 18:15-20, the hard one: privately, just the two of you — then one or two others — only then, the church. "The goal, in Jesus' own words, is to gain your brother back. It's designed to restore a relationship, not destroy one." And the honest word, worth knowing nearly verbatim because you'll need its exact posture in the hallway: "For some, the words 'church discipline' don't sound like protection — they sound like a wound. People have watched this done in cruel, controlling, unbiblical ways. That's real, and grievous, and we won't rush past it. But the abuse of a thing does not erase the right use of it. Done the way Jesus describes — gentle, patient, grieved, aimed at restoration — that is not abuse. That is love." I land on: "Accountability makes belonging safe. To be a member is to be known — really known — watched over, and loved enough to be told the truth. That isn't a threat to your belonging. That is the belonging."
Notice the shape of the afternoon: the last table round ends before the hardest teaching. I teach submission to leadership, Matthew 18, and church discipline — including the honest word about spiritual abuse — and then go straight to the pathway and communion. On purpose, there is no table processing afterward. The processing doesn't disappear; it lands on you — in the hallway, at the door, in the parking lot, and in the one-on-ones that follow.
I show the whole path: a Connect Event and "a season of experiencing this community" — this class — "a one-on-one conversation with an elder" — "public affirmation — and baptism, if that step is still ahead" — "Welcome. You're family." (The booklet's version on p. 19 adds texture: at least six months of experiencing the community, and "finding a place to use your gifting for the sake of others.") I commend the elder conversation in exactly the terms you should carry with you: "Not a test. Not an interrogation… a pastor who wants to hear your story and pray with you. Don't carry it out the door by yourself." Then the charge — "Don't let it cool off… If something is moving in you, take the step" — and the close at the table of Jesus: "He is the truest picture of Hesed there has ever been — loyal love that gave its own blood so we could belong to God, and to each other. The bread is his body. The cup is his blood. Hold them, and look to him." The final slide says it plainly: "Welcome to the family." Communion and the Covenant Cards land in these same few minutes — read the callout below before class.
The booklet's last page tells your people plainly: "Your table leader has Covenant Cards to sign if you are ready to join our church community today." That table leader is you — come with cards at your table. The card itself affirms the seven statements of faith and carries three checkboxes: baptized by immersion, completed the course, and spoken with an elder.
You are not re-teaching the class — I carry the content; you are hosting a conversation where people can say true things out loud and discover they still belong.
Host. Belonging starts at your table, not at the pulpit. Greet people as they sit down, learn names and use them, and introduce guests to one another before the teaching begins. For most people in the room, your welcome is the first taste of "covenant, not consumer" they will actually feel.
Timekeeper. My script hands you the clock in so many words: "Your table leader will keep time and bring us back together." Each round is fifteen minutes and three questions — roughly five minutes apiece. Pace the round so question three gets real air, and land it cleanly so your table regathers the moment I call the room back.
Drawer-out. A table where two people talked is an audience, not a conversation. Your craft is getting every voice in — go-arounds, low-stakes invitations by name, follow-ups that open things up. Assume the quietest person at your table is carrying the most important answer.
Shepherd. You are listening past the answers: who hesitated at a statement, whose baptism story is unresolved, who flinched at the word "accountability," who is ready today. The next step on the membership pathway is a one-on-one conversation with an elder — you own that follow-up, and the table is where you learn who needs it.
Reclaim airtime kindly and without embarrassment: "That's helpful — I want to make sure we hear everyone on this one," then invite someone else by name. The go-around makes turn-taking the table's rule rather than your rebuke, so lean on it. If it persists, a warm private word during the next teaching block usually settles it.
Invite by name, at low stakes: "I'd love to hear yours on this one" — ideally on the question nearest their own story. Quietly tipping someone off that you'll come to them next turns an ambush into an invitation. If they pass, receive it graciously; hospitality invites, it never corners.
I've already told the room this is a safe place to say "I'm not sure I believe that yet" — that it is "an honest starting point," not a disqualification. So your only wrong move is looking alarmed. Thank them, ask what's behind the hesitation, and resist the urge to fix doctrine at the table. Unresolved doubt is exactly what the one-on-one elder conversation is for — note the name, because that conversation is yours to make happen.
Session 1's second round asks, "Where are you in your own baptism story?" — so expect infant baptisms, no baptisms, and complicated ones. Honor whatever surfaces as story, and do not adjudicate whose baptism "counts" in front of six other people. That question is precisely what the elder conversation exists to hold. Thank them, note it, follow up.
Some at your table have watched church authority wound people, and the course refuses to minimize it: "the abuse of a thing does not erase its right use." Your half of that sentence is the first half — acknowledgment. Say plainly that what happened to them was real and grievous, and never defend or explain away another church's abuse. The right use of accountability will only be heard from someone who took the wound seriously first.
Say so, plainly and without squirming: "I don't know — that's a good question. Let me take it to Bradley and come back to you." Then actually come back; the follow-through is the whole move. Credibility at your table is built exactly here — a confident guess costs you far more than an honest blank.
Slow the table down; don't let the group's discomfort rush the moment. Thank them for trusting the table with it, let a beat of quiet sit, and skip the comfort-clichés — "thank you for telling us that" lands better than "God has a plan." You don't have to resolve anything inside the round. Circle back one-on-one after the session; that conversation may matter more than the one at the table.
End-times timelines, worship styles, another church's practices — when the table drifts toward a fight, name the category out loud: that's one of the "opinions" questions Christians have always disagreed about. "In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty." Offer to continue it personally after class, then return to the question on the card. You're not dodging; you're modeling the motto.
Capture follow-ups while they're fresh — before the parking lot, not the next morning. For each person at your table, one line:
These notes are the raw material for the one-on-one conversations and for the Covenant Card moment that closes Session 2. What you don't write down, you will lose.
Success is people walking out saying "that table felt safe and honest" — not "our elder had all the answers." Answers have a home downstream, in my teaching and in the one-on-one. Safety has to happen at your table, and it cannot be delegated.
BE READY
These will come up — at your table, in the hallway, and in your one-on-ones. You don't need a perfect answer. You need an honest, grounded one, and you need to know when the right answer is "let's talk about that one-on-one." Every response below is drawn from Forum's own documents and the course materials the candidates have in hand.
Be honest first: there is no verse that says "sign a membership card," and Forum's own membership policy opens with that concession — the concept is not defined by a single verse. But the reality is everywhere. In Acts, those who believed and were baptized "were added to their number" — someone was counting. The early church kept an actual enrollment list of widows it supported (1 Timothy 5:9). Paul says we are "members of one another" — membership is Bible vocabulary before it is church vocabulary. And the dozens of "one another" commands are impossible to obey in the abstract; they require a defined, committed people. Membership simply names those people.
Scripture: Acts 2:41-47; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Timothy 5:9
If it goes deeper: Point them to the fuller theology at myforum.me/membership, and let the elder conversation carry whatever is still unsettled.
A contract says "I'll give you X if you give me Y" — conditional, self-protective; it exists because I don't fully trust you. A covenant says "I am committing myself to you." That is the course's key word, Hesed: God's loyal, covenant-keeping love, poured out on his people even in the middle of their failure — based on who he is, not how they perform. And this covenant runs both ways: before a member commits anything, Forum's elders and staff put seven written commitments of their own on the table. Nobody is signing a terms-of-service agreement. Both parties are making a vow about how they will treat one another.
Scripture: John 13:34 — "just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another"
If it goes deeper: If contract-thinking runs deep — old church burnout, consumer instincts — that deserves an unhurried one-on-one, not a table debate.
You can follow Jesus without signing a card. You can't follow him without a people — the New Testament simply doesn't picture it. Its dominant image for the church is a body, and "the body does not consist of one member but of many"; a part doesn't live detached from the rest. Every "love one another, serve one another, bear with one another" assumes actual, specific people who know you and aren't going anywhere. And Hebrews says leaders "are keeping watch over your souls" — which means someone has to know whose souls they're watching over. Membership doesn't add a hoop to following Jesus; it names the people you'll follow him with.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Hebrews 10:24-25; Hebrews 13:17
If it goes deeper: Ask what's underneath — independence, past hurt, or honest conviction — and offer to keep going one-on-one.
No. Nothing about their welcome, our care for them, or their seat on a Sunday changes — the course itself says that wherever you are, "from your first time in the building to fifty years in," there is simply a next step of faith in front of you. Membership isn't a status tier; it's a mutual commitment. What changes when someone makes it is what they promise and what they're promised: to be known, watched over, and loved enough to be told the truth — by leaders who covenant back. We won't love them less if they wait. We'd just rather they not carry the decision alone.
Scripture: Ephesians 2:19 — no longer strangers, but members of the household of God
If it goes deeper: If someone has circled for years without landing, gently name it and invite them to the elder conversation anyway — it's for the undecided too.
We're an independent church standing in the Restoration Movement — born in America in the early 1800s from a simple desire: clear away centuries of accumulated human tradition and get back to the Christianity of the New Testament. Jesus at the center, and the Scriptures guiding all that we do. Practically, that gives us five instincts: congregational autonomy (no denominational headquarters — this church is led here), believers' baptism by immersion, weekly practice of the Lord's Supper, an emphasis on Christian unity that goes beyond denominational traditions, and Scripture as the final authority of faith and practice. Forum itself began in 1954 — eleven people in a sheep barn on what's now the ARC property, wanting to unite around God's Word and follow Jesus together. That is still the whole vision.
Scripture: Colossians 1:18 — Christ, not a headquarters, is the head of the church
If it goes deeper: History buffs and skeptics both do better one-on-one — don't let the table become a church-history lecture.
Because "in essentials, unity" requires saying out loud what the essentials are. The seven aren't a denominational layer on top of Scripture — they are a lean summary of what Scripture itself holds central, "historic doctrinal statements shared by the followers of Jesus for almost 2,000 years." We could have written seventy. We didn't. We drew a circle around what is genuinely essential and left liberty on the hundreds of secondary questions Christians have always disagreed about — and Scripture, not the statement, remains the final court of appeal. These doctrines aren't a wall to keep people out; they're the shared foundation that lets very different people belong to one another. You cannot covenant with people you share nothing with.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:13-16; 1 Corinthians 1:10
If it goes deeper: If they want to test-drive each of the seven, that is literally what the elder conversation is for.
Thank them first — the course asks people point-blank which statement is hardest or raises a question, so saying it out loud is obedience, not rebellion. Then sort out which kind of disagreement it is. A question still being wrestled with ("I can't fully wrap my head around the Trinity") is normal discipleship; nobody signs the card with a finished theology. A settled rejection of one of the seven is different — the card asks for sincere affirmation of the essentials, and we will never coach someone into signing what they don't believe. That's not a door slammed; it's a conversation started. Take it seriously, take it slowly, and don't negotiate doctrine at the table.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:14-15 — grow up into Christ, speaking the truth in love
If it goes deeper: Real doctrinal objections go to the elder conversation — and flag me if it needs deeper teaching.
Don't take the bait of settling it at the table — and don't dodge it either. The honest frame is the one the course just taught: the seven statements deliberately don't decide hundreds of questions Christians care deeply about, and that restraint is on purpose — in essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, love. Some questions, though, are really about Forum's practice, and those deserve a faithful answer from the people responsible for it, not a hallway improvisation. Say it plainly: "Good question — I'd rather get you a faithful answer than a fast one." Then make sure it actually gets followed up, not filed.
Scripture: Romans 15:5-7 — live in such harmony that together, with one voice, you glorify God
If it goes deeper: Carry the specific question to me or into the elder conversation — and circle back to the person yourself.
Start with honor, not adjudication: that baptism testifies that their parents loved them and that God was pursuing them before they could walk — nothing in Forum's practice erases that story. Then be clear about our practice: Forum receives members through believers' baptism by immersion. Our Statement of Faith says faith in Christ "begins by repenting from sin, confessing faith, being baptized by immersion," and the Covenant Card's first box reads "I have been immersed." In the New Testament pattern, baptism follows a person's own belief and repentance — it is their confession, made with their own voice. Don't issue a ruling on their particular story at the table; that walk belongs in the elder conversation, one-on-one and unhurried.
Scripture: Acts 2:38-41 — those who received his word were baptized, and were added
If it goes deeper: This is the elder conversation's home turf — offer to be the elder who has it with them.
Hold both of Forum's statements together, and don't improvise past them. Salvation "is a gift through faith in Jesus Christ; his death is the only sufficient payment for our sins" — baptism is not a work that earns what only grace gives. And in the same breath: faith in Christ "begins by repenting from sin, confessing faith, being baptized by immersion." The New Testament never carves a gap between believing and being baptized — at Pentecost it happened the same day — so we refuse to treat baptism as either a merit badge or an optional extra. It is where faith goes public: a believer's identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Immersion is simply what the word means and what that picture requires — a burial and a rising, the whole person under and up.
Scripture: Acts 2:38-41; Matthew 28:18-20 — make disciples, baptizing them
If it goes deeper: If it becomes a salvation-mechanics debate, step away from the crowd and finish it one-on-one — precision matters more than winning the table.
Notice what the Covenant Card actually asks: "I have been immersed" — not "I have been immersed at Forum." A believer's immersion is baptism into Christ and his body, not into a congregation or a brand: "in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body." So if they were immersed as their own confession of faith in Jesus, honor it, wherever the water was. The questions that matter are about their story — were they trusting Christ, and were they immersed? Invite them to tell that story in full in the elder conversation, where the particulars get walked through with care instead of a verdict at the table.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:13
If it goes deeper: Particulars go to the elder conversation — keep the table answer warm and unofficial.
Yes — the course is exactly where they should be, and they should feel zero embarrassment sitting at your table. The pathway was built with them in mind: "public affirmation — and baptism, if that step is still ahead." Baptisms are celebrated at Forum, not processed. So the answer to "what now?" is simply: keep walking. The elder conversation is where they'll talk through what immersion means and, when they're ready, plan the step. Some of the best moments this church gets to witness begin with somebody asking this very question at a table.
Scripture: Acts 2:41 — belief, baptism, belonging, in one movement
If it goes deeper: Offer yourself: "I'd love to be the elder who walks that with you."
A CITATION TO FIX
The participant handout's accountability page cites "Matthew 28:15-20." The passage is Matthew 18:15-20. Cite it correctly when you teach — and expect a sharp-eyed candidate to catch the typo before you do.
Don't flinch, and don't rush past their story — the course doesn't. In its own words: people have watched discipline done in cruel, controlling, unbiblical ways, and "that's real, and grievous." Grieve it with them; never defend the thing that wounded them. Then say the other true thing: the abuse of a thing does not erase its right use. Done the way Jesus describes — gentle, patient, grieved, aimed at restoration — that is not abuse; that is love. And note who sits under it here: Forum's leaders commit in writing to the same accountability, "answerable to God, to each other as leaders, and to this congregation," in environments where truth can be spoken and people are safe.
Scripture: Galatians 6:1-2 — restore gently; bear one another's burdens
If it goes deeper: Church hurt deserves an unhurried hour, not a table slot — offer the elder conversation, and mean it.
Walk the actual process, because the process is the answer. Jesus' pattern is deliberately slow and deliberately small: privately first, just the two of you; then one or two others; only then the church. The goal at every step, in Jesus' own words, is to "gain your brother back" — it is designed to restore a relationship, not destroy one. The final step is in Scripture, and honesty requires saying so — but nobody arrives there by struggling with sin. Only by refusing every loving appeal along the way, and even then the posture is grief and the hope is return.
Scripture: Matthew 18:15-20 (cite 18, not the handout's typo); 1 Corinthians 5; Titus 3:10
If it goes deeper: "Has that ever happened here?" — don't speculate or tell stories; flag it for me.
Tell them the nervousness might be wisdom — Scripture itself pairs the command with a warning to leaders. "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls" sits right beside "not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock." Shepherds, not bosses. Submission at Forum means letting leaders who will answer to God for you actually know you, teach you, and tell you the truth — and it is met first by seven written commitments the elders and staff make to every member. Submitting to that kind of leadership isn't a threat; it's a protection. Nobody keeps watch over souls they have no relationship with.
Scripture: Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 5:1-5
If it goes deeper: Ask what experience taught them the nervousness — the story usually matters more than the definition.
No — and get the direction of Matthew 18 right, because it protects them. The process starts private and stays as small as possible for as long as possible, and it is for the unrepentant, not the struggling. A person confessing a battle is doing exactly what Scripture asks — "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed" — and the commanded response is gentleness and burden-bearing, not exposure. Then hand them the course's own summary: to be a member is to be known — really known — watched over, and loved enough to be told the truth. That isn't a threat to your belonging. That is the belonging.
Scripture: James 5:16; Galatians 6:1-2
If it goes deeper: If they're carrying something right now, don't wait for the pathway — shepherd them this week.
Reframe before you answer: membership isn't billed by the hour, but it isn't spectating either. One of the seven commitments members make is to steward "our time, giftings, and finances" for God's kingdom through this church — because the Spirit placed a gift in every believer on purpose, and the purpose is the people around them. But the order matters: serving is the shape a surrendered life naturally takes — worship in response to mercy, never dues that keep a membership current. So: no quota, no timesheet. And also yes — we will help you find your part, because this body genuinely needs it.
Scripture: Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 4:10 — use your gift to serve one another
If it goes deeper: "What would that even look like for me?" — connect them to the ministry-leader follow-up promised after the course.
Good — that's not a disqualification, it's the starting line, and the course was built for it. The booklet gathers every gift the New Testament names, from Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4 — not an exam, but a picture of how wide the Spirit's generosity runs. Ask them the course's own questions: which one or two feel most like you, and where have others affirmed you before? Other people's affirmation is usually the fastest mirror. Then try something — gifts get discovered in motion, and no one is guaranteed just one for a lifetime. And remind them: after the course, ministry leaders personally reach out to help people land where their gifting fits.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 11 — one Spirit distributes them all, as he decides
If it goes deeper: Help them pick one low-stakes place to try — a first step beats an inventory.
Believe them — and don't let Hesed turn into homework. Nothing in this covenant earns God's love; all of it lives in response to it, which means a burned-out season is something to shepherd, not something to schedule around. Say the freeing part out loud: the goal is not more slots filled, it's their part — the elbow, not the whole arm — and parts come in seasons. Membership also means the body carries them: "bear one another's burdens" is a promise aimed at them right now. Maybe their honest next step is rest, and being served for a while. Let the covenant be good news before it's a job description.
Scripture: Galatians 6:2
If it goes deeper: If "busy" is covering something heavier — grief, health, marriage — follow that thread privately.
There is nothing to pass — the course says it in exactly these words: not a test, not an interrogation. It's a pastor who wants to hear your story and pray with you. They'll talk through their story of faith, what stirred or snagged during the course, and the covenant itself — the seven affirmations, walked line by line in plain language — plus their baptism story, wherever it stands. The step exists so that every member of this church is personally known by an elder; nobody becomes a name on a list here. Tell them to bring the doubts, the questions, the honest "I'm not sure I'm ready." That conversation is exactly where those belong.
Scripture: Acts 20:28 — shepherds who care for the flock God placed among them
If it goes deeper: Offer to put the conversation on the calendar before they leave the building — momentum is grace.
Roughly: come to a Connect Event, then spend about six months simply experiencing the community — Sundays, relationships, the real thing — before the two-session Covenant Course, the one-on-one elder conversation, and public affirmation, with baptism if that step is still ahead. The six months isn't probation and nobody is holding a stopwatch; it's for them, so the vow rests on real experience instead of a first impression. Covenants shouldn't be rushed into — we won't rush them, and they shouldn't want us to. But the course's other counsel is just as true: if something is stirring, don't let it cool off. Take the step in front of you.
Scripture: Acts 2:42 — devotion, practiced together over time
If it goes deeper: If they've already been here for years, the season is long since satisfied — help them take the next step, not restart the clock.
Show them the card — it fits in one hand, and there is no fine print. It says: I affirm Forum's Statement of Faith, the seven essentials we hold in common; and I've walked the pathway — I have been immersed, I have taken the Covenant Course, I have spoken with an elder about what it means to be part of the family at Forum. Then a printed name, a signature, a date. It is not a legal contract and no dues are attached; it is a covenant — "I am committing myself to you" — made before God and this family. And it's mutual: the leadership's seven commitments stand in writing before anyone signs. A signature just turns a private intention into a public promise.
Scripture: John 13:34-35 — by this everyone will know
If it goes deeper: Walk the card itself, line by line, in the elder conversation.
A covenant is entered freely, and nobody is held hostage to it — moving cities, joining another church that preaches the gospel, or needing to step back are conversations, not confrontations. Forum's written posture toward transfers and inactive members is exactly this: clear, compassionate guidance with a pastoral heart. So the practical answer is: talk to an elder. We would rather send someone well than lose them quietly out the back door. The documents don't prescribe a formal exit procedure, so don't invent one at the table — promise the conversation instead.
Scripture: Colossians 3:15 — called to peace, in one body, with thankfulness
If it goes deeper: Departures and moves go straight to an elder or to me — never a hallway ruling.
ONE ON ONE
This is the third checkbox on the Covenant Card: "I have spoken with an elder about what it means to be a part of the family at Forum." The course has already told them what this hour is — not a test, not an interrogation, but a pastor who wants to hear their story and pray with them. Your only job is to be exactly that.
The membership process names this as its relational cornerstone: a personal, one-on-one conversation to hear the prospective member's testimony and affirm their commitment to the church covenant. The elder hears their profession of faith and walks through the membership covenant line by line, making sure they understand the commitments they are making. It ensures every member is personally known by an elder, keeps anyone from becoming a member in name only, and gives leadership a caring way to discern readiness and address any lingering questions before the public affirmation.
"I'm not sure about one of the seven."
First find out which kind of unsure. A question still being worked out is welcome company on this pathway — nobody affirms the card with a finished theology, and liberty covers the hundreds of opinion questions beyond the seven. A settled "I don't believe that" is different: the seven are the essentials, the card asks for sincere affirmation, and you must never coach someone into signing what they don't believe. Slow the timeline without shame, get them what they need, and loop me in if it calls for deeper teaching. A delayed signature in truth beats a quick one in doubt.
"I was baptized as a baby, and I'm hesitant about immersion."
Honor the story first: that baptism speaks of parents who loved them and a God who was pursuing them before they could walk — believers' immersion doesn't erase that; it answers it with their own voice. Then be clear and gentle about our practice: Forum receives members through believers' baptism by immersion — it is in the Statement of Faith they just walked, and it is the card's first box. Explain it as Scripture's own picture — a confession, a burial, a rising, an act of obedience — never as a repudiation of their family. Where their story is complicated, don't rule alone; the elders walk those cases together, one at a time.
Church hurt starts surfacing.
Stop the agenda — this is the conversation now, and it is why the hour exists. Let them tell it. Grieve what was genuinely grievous, and never defend another church's cruelty to make accountability look better. When it's time, offer the course's own honest word: the abuse of a thing does not erase its right use — done the way Jesus describes, gentle, patient, grieved, aimed at restoration, that is not abuse; that is love. Point to what leadership here binds itself to: the same accountability it offers, and environments where truth can be spoken and people are safe. Then let trust rebuild at the speed of trust.
"I'm just not ready."
Bless the honesty — out loud. The course invited exactly this answer and called this conversation the right place to bring it, so "not yet" is the pathway working, not failing. Ask gently what sits behind it — a doctrine, a wound, a season, a spouse — then name one concrete next step and offer to walk it with them. Leave the door visibly open: nothing about their welcome or our love changes, and the card will still be here.
"I want to be a member, but I don't want to be baptized."
Don't waive it, and don't shame them — hold the line the documents hold, with a shepherd's hands. The card cannot be signed truthfully without "I have been immersed": the pathway names "affirmation of our core doctrines and baptism by immersion" in one breath, because how faith begins is one of the essentials, not a house rule. So the real question underneath is "why not?" Listen for fear, a family complication, or an old tradition, and address the actual thing. The step stays in front of them at their pace — and so do you.
"We're transferring from another church."
Receive their history as a gift, not a complication — years of faithfulness elsewhere deserve honor, and a believer's immersion is honored here wherever the water was, because baptism is into Christ's body, not into a congregation. Forum's guidance to its leaders on transfers is simple: clear, compassionate, pastoral. The pathway itself is how everyone enters covenant here — the course, this conversation, the public affirmation — so walk them through it warmly rather than around it.
Your conversation completes the card's third box — but only if the loop actually closes. Before you drive home:
REMEMBER
The course made these people a promise on our behalf: "If something landed hard — a question, a doubt, a wound, an honest 'I'm not sure I'm ready' — that conversation is exactly where it belongs. Don't carry it out the door by yourself." You are that conversation. Sit down as a shepherd, not an examiner, and make the promise true.
Everything your guests will see, plus the tools you bring to the table.
What every guest holds for both weeks — fill-in-the-blanks, the table questions in print, and the pathway.
My slides for What We Believe — the story, the Restoration DNA, and the seven statements.
My slides for What Belonging Looks Like — Hesed, the commitments, gifts, accountability, the pathway.
The Covenant Card — the seven affirmations and three checkboxes. The third checkbox is your conversation.
One page for your table: the flow, both rounds word for word, and the reminders that matter.
One page for your table: the flow, both rounds, the card moment, and the hallway reminders.
Guests fill these blanks in during the teaching. Keep the answers in your pocket — someone at your table will have missed one and quietly want it.
The theology under this course lives in the eight-part Covenant of Belonging teaching series and at myforum.me/membership, which the handout points guests to for our theology of membership.