Values

Values Relating to Corporate Worship

• A public worship form that communicates the supremacy of God in all of life.
• Fervent, biblical, Spirit-anointed, God-exalting, personally helpful preaching.
• The importance of old and new, historic and current.
• The importance of both spirit and truth in our worship experience.
• Going hard after God as the all-satisfying end in himself.
• Vulnerability with our imperfections that encourages candor, not concealment.
• Authenticity and transparency in communicating in large and small group settings.
• Increasing in a humble willingness to support others whose tastes are different than ours.
• Growing appreciation for diverse expressions of love for God.
• We settle for/desire to offer nothing less than our best.
• The training up of worship participants to excel in development and expression of talents.
• Education of congregations understanding of many aspects of true worship.
• Increase our affection for God, as we learn how to increase and express our affection for God.

Values Relating to the Relationship of our Life Together: Community

• Increasingly visible, authentic, practical ways of loving each other.
• Eager openness to new people and the avoidance of cliquishness; unity in diversity.
• Building lasting friendships that strengthen our faith.
• The freedom to relax and enjoy each other and God’s world in casual ways.
• The importance of small groups for building caring, faith-sustaining relationships.
• The spiritual shepherding by elders, and deaconal care of all our people.
• A strong attention to bringing children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. A spiritually dynamic youth ministry that equips teenagers for courageous Christian living. Capturing the hearts and minds of college students with a biblical vision of God. Honoring and caring for the senior members of our congregation. Being a place where single people can flourish with each other and in families.
• Continued growth in the number of people who find joy and strength through membership.
• Building strong marriages that model the relationship between Christ and the Church. And appreciating God’s wisdom in His design that men and women complement each other.
• Biblical counseling for persons, marriages and families in distress.
• The commitment of all members to live according to the Church Covenant.
• All members be instructed in how to know their spiritual gifts, and directed and encouraged using them in serving Christ and His church.
• Personal and corporate efforts toward reconciling relationships.

Values Relating to Spiritual Atmosphere: Discipleship

• Primary discipleship and Christian education curriculum is the Bible.
• Growing frequency, freedom, depth and power in corporate, family and private prayer. Making prayer the visible engine of all our efforts in ministry and worship.
• Multiplying disciples as biblical model for true church growth and raising up leaders; Eph. 4, II Tim. 2:
• Personal Bible reading, reflection and memorization among all our people.
• The study of sound biblical theology so that we will not be children in our thinking.
• The persuasion that ideas have consequences. Biblical thinking that prevents us from being conformed to the world, as God transforms us into His likeness through His word.
• The indispensable role of the Holy Spirit, teachers and parents to impart biblical truth to the mind and to awaken love for truth in the heart.
• Being people who are humble and teachable before the Word of God, always growing and being refined in our grasp of God’s truth and grace.
• All services, committees, small groups, and relationships permeated with the Word of God, for wisdom, understanding and direction.
• Recognizing the inevitability and spiritual value of suffering in this fallen age as a primary of our spiritual growth, as it teaches us to trust God and not ourselves.
• Biblical model of servanthood as we take thought for the good of others.
• Radical obedience to Jesus in personal holiness and purity in public and in secret.
• Laying hold of the relentless pursuit of hope and joy in God, recognizing God Himself to be the fullness of life and power.
• Being a people who are earnest, intense and passionate about the things of God.
• Personal holiness and godly character of elders and staff who equip people for ministry.
• Being generous, regular and cheerful in giving to the mission and ministries of the work of God in church, encouraging all of us to reach toward the tithe and beyond as God prospers.
• Discipling of spiritual newborns through adults.

Values Relating to Evangelism

• Sustaining ministries of word and deed to the destitute and homeless—mercy.
• Continuous evangelism through our natural web of relationships, one-on-one and corporately.
• Necessity of strategic planning so that we intentionally carry out individual and corporate evangelistic ministry.
• Encouraging lay people to be salt and light at all levels of society.
• Cultivating a ministry mindset of creativity, flexibility, and responsiveness to new needs, outreach opportunities.
• Training, equipping and mentoring of our Christian community to witness for the gospel of Christ.

Values Relating to World Missions

• Aggressive participation in completing the global task of reaching unreached peoples.
• A sustained priority in prayer, personnel and funding for our adopted people group, and others the Lord leads us to adopt.
• Mentoring future vocational ministers and missionaries.
• Applying field mission strategies to reaching people groups nearby.
• Careful, clear, fair biblical thinking about contemporary culture. Bold, balanced, winsome confrontation of our culture’s clearly unbiblical elements.
• Sharing pastoral staff with the wider movement through their writing and speaking, missions focus.
• Remembering and praying for the persecuted and suffering church.