May 7, 2003
For 16– and 17-year-old voting Family members
For: _____________________________
Some of you 16- and 17-year-olds have made a commitment to join the Family wholeheartedly and are determined to do your best to fulfill the Charter member responsibilities as defined in the Charter. We're proud of you for your dedication. Even if you are fully committed, the Lord does not expect you to sign the Charter Membership Contract at this time. When you are 18 and you've made your calling and election sure, you can join with the others of your age and sign the CM contract. For now, your declaration of faith will be in signing the Provisional Charter Membership contract and being a testimony to your peers of dedication and obedience.
Others of you senior teens do not yet feel ready to make a decision of total commitment to the Lord and the Family, and therefore you may have difficulty understanding the need for you to adhere to the Charter member standard. This particularly holds true when it comes to embracing all of the fundamental Family beliefs, fully applying the Word in your daily life, and minimizing and resisting unedifying and ungodly influences.
We want to be understanding of the fact that some of you senior teens have not yet made a full commitment to the Lord and the Family; you haven't yet decided to accept and apply all of the Word to your life, and you may be drawn to some of the things of the world. However, because we live communally, it is important that the negative repercussions to others which result from your personal choices along these lines are kept to a minimum. While the decisions you make in these matters of commitment to the Lord and the Family rest with you personally, the results or consequences of your decisions have a direct effect on the people you live with or fellowship with at teen gatherings, parties, youth camps, etc. That's why in signing this Provisional Charter Membership contract you're willingly agreeing to work in unity with your Home regarding your activities and behavior.
The signing of this contract does not signify that you have fully and completely accepted all Family beliefs and doctrines. But it does indicate that you are willing to try to live up to the Charter member standard, as outlined in this contract‚ as much as possible.
Part of the Charter Membership standard is to minimize and resist unedifying and ungodly influences. This has been a difficult requirement for parents, Homes and shepherds to judge. But we want to clarify this by noting that the extent to which you and all the other members of your Home can participate in such activities as watching unrecommended movies, listening to System music‚ playing computer games‚ communicating with friends on e–mail, reading novels, hanging out with System friends at the mall or at parties, visiting sites on the Internet, etc., is to be determined by the regulations that your Home agrees on with a vote. In signing this contract, you are stating that you will do your best to go along with your Home's regulations on these matters.
If you do not obey your Home's regulations and your participation in any of these activities results in actions or attitudes that are detrimental to your peers, the younger children, the work, or your Home in general‚ then your behavior will not be allowed to go on unchecked.
The three governing bodies of the Family—the Home‚ the VSs and the CROs—are asked to take into consideration that because of your age you may not have fully committed your life to the Lord and the Family. Therefore, from time to time you might slip and say or do things that spiritually hurt yourself or others, or go against your Charter responsibilities. Your Home, the VSs and the CROs will take this into consideration when judging your actions.
The governing bodies will judge your situation and behavior by the following factors:
If you sometimes fail to keep the Charter standard or obey the Fundamental Family Rules, you will be shepherded, and possibly disciplined by Partial Excommunication or Probationary Status in accordance with the Charter. If these infractions of the Charter become a regular habit for you, and as a result, your words, actions or attitudes begin to cause problems in your Home or hurt the work‚ and other forms of Charter discipline have failed, then your Home, the VSs or the CROs will recommend that you become a Fellow member. Two of the three governing bodies, not you‚ will decide whether you are upholding your Charter member responsibilities, whether you are minimizing ungodly and unedifying influences; whether your words, attitudes and actions are consistently harmful or destructive to the Home or its members; or whether your behavior is unchristian and hurting the work.
This Provisional Membership contract is not a license for you to do whatever you want. It's an understanding between you and the three governing bodies of the Family. Your part is to understand that you need to do your best to uphold your Charter member responsibilities and the regulations agreed upon by your Home. Their part is to understand that you may need some time to make your full commitment to the Lord and the Family, and therefore they're willing to give you that time and show a degree of mercy, within certain boundaries.
There will be some tolerance shown to you because you haven't yet signed the Charter Membership contract, which you will need to do when you reach 18 in order to keep your Charter membership. But under this provisional contract, if you show yourself to be a harmful or destructive influence within your Home or other CM Homes, then you will be in jeopardy of losing your Charter member status. You will be recommended for Fellow member status.
So in signing this Provisional Charter Membership contract you're agreeing to do your best to fulfill the Charter member responsibilities as noted in this contract. You're agreeing to resist and minimize unedifying and ungodly influences in your life, and to obey to the best of your ability the regulations of the Home in which you abide. The three governing bodies of the Family are agreeing to shepherd you in these responsibilities and allow you some leeway as you learn and progress‚ on the condition that you are upholding your part of the contract by putting forth a genuine effort to uphold the standard‚ and that your words‚ actions and attitudes are not harmful or destructive to your Home‚ its members, or the work in general.
I hereby signify that I understand and without coercion willingly sign this non-legally binding Provisional Membership contract and agree that in order to continue as a Charter member of the Family, I will consistently adhere to all of the following Charter responsibilities.
I also acknowledge and agree that if I sign the contract but then fail to consistently comply with these stipulations, then my shepherds and/or parents will try to shepherd me, and I will be open to their counsel. If it is determined after shepherding and other forms of Charter discipline have been employed, such as Probationary Status and Partial Excommunication, that I have not made the changes needed to fulfill the Charter member requirements, which will be decided by two of the Family's three governing bodies—the Home, the area office and continental office—then it will result in my being recommended for Fellow member status in accordance with the procedures outlined in the Procedures for Moving a Charter Member to Fellow Member Status (see page 211 through 216).
As a minor, if I willingly leave the Family, or move to Fellow member status‚ or am placed on Fellow member status by two of the Family's governing bodies, I will return to my parents' Home as soon as possible‚ if living apart from them. At that point my parents will have to either obtain the agreement of their Home to allow me to live in their Home as a non-Charter member, in accordance with the stipulations in the Charter, until other suitable arrangements can be made for my legal care, or until the time I reach legal age and can move out of the Home. If my parents' Home will not receive me as a non-Charter member living in their Home, my parents will have to move out of the Home and open their own CM Home and live by themselves, with CRO permission, with me living there as a non-Charter member. My parents will also have the option to move to Fellow member status with me and the rest of their children.
I hereby agree to:
A.Maintain a close connection with God through personal communion with Jesus, personal and united prayer and praise‚ personal and united reading of His Word (both the Bible and the Letters), Scripture memorization‚ and the minimizing and resisting of ungodly and unedifying influences in my life; thus exhibiting the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
(From WS Leadership: We wish to make it clear here that failure to minimize and resist ungodly and unedifying influences includes consistently reading unedifying or ungodly material, including pornographic material‚ in books‚ magazines or on the Internet; watching unedifying videos, movies or TV; playing unedifying computer games; sending ungodly e–mail; listening to ungodly music; using foul language, or engaging in other activities deemed by the Family's governing bodies to be a reproach to the cause of Christ.)
If you are unsure about whether something is unedifying, go to the Word, go to the Lord, counsel with your shepherds and be open to what the Word, the Lord and your shepherds say (Charter Responsibilities, ML #3197:61). If you wish to keep your Charter membership, then you are required to minimize these ungodly influences in your life.
As with all other individual Charter responsibilities, we want to make it clear that discerning whether you are minimizing and resisting unedifying and ungodly influences in your life will be determined by the agreement of any two of the Family's governing bodies—your Home, your area office, and your continental office—and not by you.
After other forms of shepherding and Charter discipline have been exhausted‚ if your Home, your area office or your continental office feel you are consistently not minimizing these ungodly and unedifying influences, they will recommend you for Fellow member status. If one of the other two bodies agrees with their recommendation, the procedure to move you to Fellow member status will begin immediately as outlined on pages 211-216 of the Charter.
Since the Lord's counsel on these matters has been published in the Word, and since you as a Charter member are expected to read and believe the Word, it is expected that you'll accept what the Lord and we have to say about these things. Whether you personally feel that these affect you negatively or not, God's Word says they do, and as a Charter member you should avoid and minimize them in your life (Charter Responsibilities, ML #3197:66).
B.Believe that David was God's Endtime prophet and that Maria is God's chosen and anointed successor, who has inherited David's mantle as God's prophetess.
C.Respect the fundamental Family beliefs, even though I may not have yet made the decision to fully accept all of them. This respect means that I understand that Charter members do accept the fundamental Family beliefs‚ and therefore I will not speak against these beliefs or undermine others' faith in them. I understand that I can and should bring any questions or doubts I have to my parents or shepherds in order to find the answers I need so I can grow in faith.
D.Endeavor to live in accordance with the Word by trying to apply the spiritual and practical counsel given in the Letters to my daily life.
E.Read the Bible, the Letters‚ and other Family publications, both old and new.
F.Endeavor to live by the principles of the Law of Love: To love and care for, and interact lovingly and harmoniously with all members of the Home in which I reside and with Family members at large.
G.Engage in evangelism.
H.Live in accordance with the Charter of Responsibilities and Rights and the Fundamental Family Rules, which are determined, defined and published by World Services.
I.Reside in a Charter Home and appear on a Home's monthly report each month.
J.Share my material belongings with the Family in general, and with my resident Home in particular‚ according to Acts 2:44-45‚ and be a good steward of all Family materials.
K.Endeavor to fulfill the Scriptural injunction to bear ye one another's burdens—to put the needs of the Home and its members before my own.
L.Bear, with all other voting members of the Home, the spiritual, physical, material, and educational responsibilities of the Home in which I reside.
M.Participate in the governing of the Home in which I reside; accept responsibility for the collective decisions and actions of that Home, and for the results of those decisions and actions (with the exception of financial matters).
N.Live in accordance with the agreed-upon Home regulations of the Home in which I continue to reside.
O.Commit my resources, time, energy‚ knowledge, gifts and talents towards reaching the agreed–upon goals of the Home in which I reside and the goals of the Family at large.
P.Perform, to the best of my ability, the duties and responsibilities assigned to me by the Home's duly elected officers.
Q.Cooperate with and support the joint decisions of the Home's voting members, or if in disagreement or unable to cooperate for any other reason‚ voluntarily remove myself from the Home by moving to another Home [with parental permission, or returning to my parents' Home].
R.Endeavor to conduct myself as a good Christian, showing outgoing love and concern for others‚ and fulfilling my obligations, legal and otherwise, to them.
S.Refrain from activities or behavior that would be a reproach to the cause of Christ and/or reflect negatively on the Family.
T.Endeavor to overcome, and when necessary request united prayer against, those personal weaknesses and besetting sins that cause physical or spiritual disruption in the Home, and/or physical, spiritual, or emotional harm to me or others.
U.Recognize that my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and as such‚ not abuse it in any way. Keep a clean and presentable appearance, and actively and regularly endeavor to stay healthy and physically fit.
V.Have a working knowledge of the Charter of Responsibilities and Rights and the Fundamental Family Rules.
W.If I have children, raise them in a godly manner according to the spirit of the Charter‚ providing them with adequate care, education and spiritual training. Discipline my children in accordance with the Family Discipline Guidelines and the standard agreed upon by my Home, and take action if my children's behavior is a reproach to the cause of Christ and/or reflects negatively on the Family.
I understand that signing this Provisional Charter Membership contract allows me to remain in the Charter member Family while I make the decisions in my life regarding my service for the Lord and my adherence to all the fundamental beliefs of the Family.
During this decision-making period, I will do my best to adhere to the Charter member responsibilities and to be a positive rather than a negative influence within my Home. I understand that my parents and/or shepherds have a duty to shepherd me, and I will try my best to receive their shepherding and any needed Charter discipline. I understand that there will be some tolerance shown by the three governing bodies of the Family, but that if, through my words, actions or attitudes, I have become a hurtful or destructive influence within my Home or other CM Homes, and other forms of discipline have failed, I will be recommended for Fellow member status. I also understand that if I commit any offense warranting excommunication, the discipline stated in the Charter will be enacted and I will be partially or fully excommunicated.
I also understand that if I decide not to sign this contract I am thereby making the decision to move to Fellow member status or leave the Family.
Signed: _____________________________ Date: _______‚ ___‚ 1999
Witnessed by two Home officers: ___________________________________________
You are required to sign this contract as well as the enclosed coupon, both of which should be witnessed by two of your Home officers. If two of your Home officers are not able to sign the contract and coupon, you must send an explanation of why not to your continental office with the coupon. The coupon should be signed by Oct.12 and mailed to your continental office with the next TRF after that date. Thank you.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family