A covenant is an individual agreement I make with God concerning my
relationship to others. It is not to be made into a
demand by which we bind and imprison one another. I
make my covenant with God, not with you, even though it
may directly concern you.
THE COVENANT OF
GRACE (Colossians
3:5-14) I will love you, build you up, and
accept you, my brothers and sisters, no matter what you
say or do, no matter what you don't say or don't
do. I will love you in whatever form you
come.
THE COVENANT OF
TRUTH (Ephesians
4:25-32) I will not hide from you what I feel about
you or coming from you, good or bad, but I will seek, in
the timing of the Spirit, to deal openly and directly
with you in a loving and forgiving way so that you are
not unaffirmed when in need, and so that our frustrations
with each other do not become bitterness.
THE COVENANT OF
OPENNESS(Luke
11:37-41) I will open myself to you inwardly, my
hurts, joys, loves, hates, hopes, disappointments,
history. I will affirm you by needing you and
making you a part of my inner life.
THE COVENANT OF
SACRIFICE AND PRAYER
(Philippians 2:1-11) Particularly in our
gatherings, but through the week as well, I covenant to
seek to make your needs more important than my own as we
talk, worship and pray together. I will pray daily
and diligently for you. I will work to be sensitive to
the Spirit concerning you and your needs.
THE COVENANT OF
AVAILABILITY (Acts
2:43-47) I will seek to serve you with my time, energy,
wisdom, finances, material goods. When you need my
physical aid, I will be present with anything I
have.
THE COVENANT OF
REGULARITY (Hebrews
10:19-25; Luke 9:57-62) I will regard the time
which my group spends together weekly as time under the
disciplining hand of Jesus in our midst. I will not
grieve the Spirit or hinder His work in the lives of my
brothers and sisters by my absence except in
emergency. By His permission and through prayer
alone will I consider absence.
THE COVENANT OF
ACCOUNTABILITY (Ezekiel
3:16-21; Matt. 18:12-20) I give you the right to
question, confront and challenge me in love when I seem
to be failing in any aspect of my life under God --
family, devotions, general spiritual growth and the
life. I trust you to be in the Spirit and led of
Him when you do so. I need your correction and
reproof so that I may ever better fulfill my God-given
ministry among you. I covenant not to be defensive.
(Prov.12:1; 15; 13:1, 10, 18)
THE COVENANT OF
CONFIDENTIALITY (Prov.
10:19; 11:9, 13; 12:23; 13:3; 15:4; 18:6-8) I
realize that much of what you share could be harmful to
you, where it repeated in other company. Therefore,
personal matters stop here. I will say nothing
outside the group that might be injurious or embarrassing
to any one of you.
THE COVENANT OF
OUTREACH (Matt.
25:31-46) I covenant to find ways to sacrifice
myself for those outside our fellowship or our faith in
the same way that I have covenanted to sacrifice myself
for you, my brothers and sisters. I will treat
unbelievers exactly as if they were believers. I
will do it in Jesus' name, so that others are added to
the Kingdom of God in His love.
