Our Core Values
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Bible Teaching…The Bible is the very breath of God, spoken through men
as they were guided by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s revelation about
His mission and the practical implications of what it means to pledge
our allegiance to Jesus and His kingdom. We teach, study, and apply the
Bible in our lives as the substance of our faith. Worship…God is worthy of our undivided affection. Worship is the recognition that God is, that He was, and that He always will be. To set our hearts and minds on God and to allow our daily lives to be lived out of that affection is worship. Worship happens when God’s people gather to sing, when we are alone in silence or in any context when God is the center of our thoughts and affections. Witness…Jesus came to announce that the kingdom of God is at hand and that salvation is available to everyone in His name. His call to repent and to follow was a call to take up the mission of God as our own mission. As followers of Jesus, we are his witnesses to the kingdom of God among us. To witness is to bear testimony to the power of the name of Jesus to redeem and to re-birth. Witness takes place through relationships and involves a deep care for the people who we meet who have not heard or seen the content of salvation. Our actions must be consistent and our lives must reflect the uniqueness of the kingdom of God if our words are to be heard. Compassion…Jesus’ life was expressed through a spirit of compassion. He recognized the root cause of mankind’s pain as sin, but he did not disregard the pain of sickness and poverty and prejudice that this sin caused. Jesus met physical needs as a tangible declaration that true salvation affects the body, the mind, and the soul. We are a people who want to carry the message of salvation with the same spirit of compassion. Community…Living our lives in pursuit of Jesus is difficult in a world that does not affirm His kingdom or authority as eternal and true. Jesus established a context through which individuals could unite themselves with others who desire to follow Him. He provided us the gift of the Holy Spirit who guides us in all truth and binds us together in one community. We believe that the church is the place where we express our lives of following Jesus and that none of us is capable of following Jesus alone. Our church gathers for corporate worship celebration and teaching on Sundays but the life of our church is expressed throughout the week in our House Churches. Prayer…The prayer of God’s people is the ministry of the church. Through prayer our hearts are molded and bent to the will of God and through prayer we have been given the opportunity to join with God in His mission to save the world. Any activity that we engage in must be a result of prayer. Stewardship…We recognize that as followers of Jesus, we have given ourselves to the mission of God and we are ambassadors of that mission. We recognize that Jesus is Lord of our lives. Lordship affects all that we are and all that we have. God owns our time and our skills and our gifts and our money and they are to be used in a way that is consistent with His will. Because that will is salvation and reconciliation, we direct our resources toward that end. Tithing is a first step in our declaring that God is in control. It is giving ten percent of what we earn to the local church as a step of joining ourselves to the particular expression of the mission that the local church is engaged in. Beyond that, all of our resources are to be made available to the mission. |
