Three words sum up our vision statement:
Gospel-Community-Mission
Gospel:
The Gospel is the Good News that through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension and the promised Holy Spirit, we can be born again, rescued, justified, reconciled to God, freed from the penalty and power of sin, adopted into the family of God (and sent on mission to glorify Him as we eagerly anticipate Jesus return & eternal life).
Community:
The Gospel not only reconciles us to God but to each other so that we can become a people, a Community (1 Pet. 2:9, Titus 2:14). Christ Church expresses this Community in two ways:
- Gathered – Sundays
- Scattered – Missional Communities
Mission:
The Gospel reconciles us to God, gathers us in Community and makes the giving of the Spirit possible so that we can be a people sent on Mission to glorify Him as we eagerly anticipate Jesus’ return and eternal life. Or we could say that we exist to “Glorify God by Building a Community of Spirit-Filled Disciples Living on Gospel Mission”.
Two words sum up our rhythms:
GOing and GROWing
Grow:
We make disciples by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 19:20). Disciple making is teaching believers to observe (obey and live out) all that Scripture teaches. When we merge Matthew 28:20 with Hebrews 10:23-25 it gives us a simple and beautiful picture of how we are to make disciples of believers.
Go:
We make disciples by GOing to the lost and “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”(Matt 28:20). Although “baptizing” here could refer to water baptism, according to other verses (Matt 3:11, Acts 1:5, 11:16) it probably means more than that. To “make disciples” by “baptizing” is to immerse or plunge others into the name, persons or presence of the Trinity. It is to live so filled with the Holy Spirit that when you are with others, they are being immersed into the Trinity by the way you talk and live. It is having Jesus “with you always” (vs. 20) through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.