Mission & Values
Our Mission: Know Christ, Grow in Christ, and Serve Christ
Our mission finds its reality in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the focal point of our faith and worship. Through the energizing flow of His Spirit, we are empowered to live the winsome, adventurous life of a Christ-follower.
Having come into newness of life, we desire to extend this irresistible grace to all people. We are eager to introduce others to the Lord of Life and walk with them on their journey to knowing Christ and growing in relationship with Him.
We want to grow and mature in our faith. As we keep our eyes on Jesus, He will personally oversee what He began within us. Our lives are renewed as the Holy Spirit confronts us with experiences that render His Word alive and change us from within. Through that transformation, we then have the credibility and authenticity that God can use to help others develop in their understanding and response to His Spirit.
Out of that growth, we will naturally start telling the world by what we say and do that Jesus Christ has not forgotten them but rather He cares deeply for them. Our outreach takes two forms. We pray for the Spirit’s equipping to extend the Lord’s compassion to those who are poor in someway—the needy, the marginalized, the forgotten, the rejected. At the same time, our going forth involves serving Christ by speaking His Name and gladly and boldly proclaiming His gospel to the people He lovingly encounters through us.
To fulfill our mission, we will:
- Glorify God through life-changing, Christ-centered worship. God created us to worship Him in Spirit and truth. As we grow in the Spirit, we will approach worship enthusiastically with open minds and hearts prepared to express our sincere love for Him because of Who He is and what He is doing in our lives. We fully expect God to respond to our adoration in a profound way that will encourage, strengthen and refresh us. Ultimately we want to become a people whose lifestyle is worship, in which all we do and say is offered up to Christ in a continuous act of praise.
- Gather in loving community marked by friendship, mutual care, and encouragement. We desire to come together in genuine commitment and connect with each other on deep levels. Among other things, that means we will share each other joys, walk through sorrows together, hold each other accountable in love, and teach, rebuke and correct one another. In order to do that, we will need to relate in mutuality. Mutuality requires that we not only offer encouragement and help but also receive care and support from others. God will work both through our vulnerability to one another and our reciprocal concern to strengthen our sense of belonging.
- Grow people into fully devoted Christ-followers. It is the call of the church to always be developing people to their fullest potential. While this is the work of the Spirit, God uses the gifts of ministry and fellowship as a means of building and growing His people. We want to be intentional about challenging each person at different levels, so they can learn, stretch and grow. God’s plan for His people is that we come to know Christ and grow continuously in relationship with Him, so that our lives have a greater purpose that manifests itself in a significant impact on the world.
- Give to the body of Christ through personal commitment and meaningful ministry. As we evaluate what we are doing to build up our church, we certainly want to consider the giving of our time, talents and financial resources. Beyond that, another important consideration is what can we do to strengthen the church’s ministries. God unites us by the indwelling of His Spirit, and He imparts to us the understanding that we are a family in ministry together. Each member has a vital role to fulfill in our family. Identifying that specific ministry will renew each of our lives with passion, energy and desire to serve God and His body.
- Go joyfully into the world living the Good News of God’s love in word and deed. Christ commissioned His followers to go out into the world and make new disciples. As we seek to bring the light of Christ to a dark and broken world, we will touch people’s lives with kingdom values. Hurting people will see that God’s love can make difference. Christ’s call includes meeting physical and emotional needs along with the mandate to share the gospel. We must share the gospel or people will miss the spiritual truth that matters for eternity. When we do go, we are infused with energetic, contagious, God-given joy.
Values
Biblically Based
We seek to be a believing fellowship guided by God’s inspired Word as the basis for all ministry and mission.
Prayer
We desire to orient our minds, wills and affections toward our Heavenly Father in all that we do. We know that only in deeper love, relationship, dependence, obedience and openness can we effectively live and serve. We yearn, therefore, to be people of prayer who communicate with, and respond to, God’s loving will for our lives. We further desire to be a group of people who, with singleness of mind, pray for spiritual awakening within people who are separated from God and revival within the church. We believe that God desires to renew us in order that the Body of Christ might be used more fully for God’s kingdom plans.
Transformational Ministry
We seek to educate, challenge, grow and stretch every person so that our lives will be radically changed as we yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Lifelong Spiritual Growth
We recognize our faith to be an ongoing journey toward maturity in Christ. We, therefore, encourage one another to be open to God’s continual shaping of our lives through personal Bible study, prayer and practice of the spiritual disciplines. We pray and seek growth in holiness, in deeper relationship with God and in commitment to live as Kingdom people. We will work to develop ministries for all ages that support personal spiritual development.
Body of Christ
We are filled with gratitude that we have been called into community. We will exhort one another to live out this reality by building relationships based upon deep commitment, trust, forgiveness, positive encouragement, love, mutual care, accountability and truthfulness. We will seek to honor our Lord in every aspect of human relationship.
Inspired Initiative
We desire to be led by the Holy Spirit into new ministry opportunities as the Holy Spirit works in our lives to call us to places of service or mission. We value innovation which helps reach people for Christ. We desire to be a church guided not by self-generated programming efforts, but rather by Spirit-led initiatives. We trust that God will lead us into new arenas of ministry by raising up people and resources to do whatever He calls us to do.
Creativity without Compromise
We live in an age that demands new ways of engaging people with the message of God’s love and fostering a climate for spiritual growth through God’s power and leading. We encourage creativity in all areas of ministry, and we are open to trying new approaches even at the risk of sometimes failing. But we will be attentive to the boundary between creativity and compromise when it comes to the truth of our faith and good news of Jesus Christ. We will not compromise the message for the sake of pleasing people, for we believe our Lord is honored when we faithfully proclaim the full truth of God’s grace to us.
Empowered Leadership
Following the model of Jesus as a servant leader, we wish to grow a broad spectrum of leaders who seek to follow Christ as the Head of the Church. We desire in prayer to know His will, show flexibility in the face of the changing demands confronting the church today and make strong efforts to unite our church in a common vision for ministry. We are committed to intentional leadership development that will enable all that are gifted in this way to participate.
Every Member Ministry
We follow the model of Jesus in growing disciples who see themselves as ministers of Christ. We wish to help each person discover his or her gifting and call for ministry and to equip, empower and mobilize them for meaningful service.