Our Values

Statement of Faith

Ministries

Staff

Elders

Deacons

Missions

History

 

Our Values that Flow from Our Beliefs

Christ
We are first and foremost followers of Christ converted into life-long devotees of the gospel’s content and its Author. We seek greater intimacy with Him and promotion of Him through the gospel. We acquire power from a deeper application of our identity in the gospel and the promises of the gospel to counter the influence of a self-promoting heart and the surrounding Christ-rejecting community.

(Ephesians 1:17-19, 3:16-19)

Community

The Church is not merely a collection of individuals but a community whose growth is directly dependent upon each part functioning together according to its divine design. Our growth in Christ is more important than my growth in Christ.  Within that collection of individuals are those God gives to train workers (elders and pastors) and those workers (deacons, ministry leaders, members) who build the Church through their training. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

Mission

As ambassadors of Christ we enter the community around us communicating Christ’s message to all races, demonstrating Christ’s mercy to the hurting, and Christ’s justice to the abused. As members of the worldwide kingdom of Christ we seek to export missionaries, pastors, and church planters recognizing the abundance of Christian resources in our backyard and the great need for workers in the rest of the world.  (Ephesians 6:10-20)

The Areas of Emphasis that Flow from Our Values:

We emphasize substantive preaching and blended singing to foster the constant exchange of our sin for Christ’s grace so that authentic change can occur in us.

We emphasize corporate prayer as an expression of our dependence upon God’s power, not ours, and as an expression of our anticipation that God will fulfill His promise to honor His name and bring His kingdom closer through us. 

We emphasize education that doesn’t merely inform but is intentionally equipping us to find our place of service and our field of mission. 

We emphasize small groups that gather to apply the gospel we have been learning. Real change occurs through relationships of grace and honesty so that people from all races and backgrounds can speak and hear the truth of the gospel from one another because it comes through time-invested relationships of evident love.

We emphasize shepherding care by elders charged with that responsibility and membership as an agreement to come under that shepherding care as together we seek an atmosphere of mutual accountability and constructive communication.

We emphasize long-term pacesetting: taking our cue from an unhurried God we seek thoughtful, patient, and flexible areas of emphasis over trend-influenced programs responding to temporary needs. Cathedrals take several generations to complete.