VISION
To Express Christ Corporately
CORE VALUES
- Our allegiance is to Christ and one another, not to indigenous activity or form.
- Building Christ in people through mentoring, discipleship, fellowship, and impartation.
- Establishing relationship before developing functional expression.
- Bridging generational, ethnic and socio-economic expanses to engender a pervasive kingdom culture.
- Developing a culture of servant-leadership that embraces headship, plurality, and mutual submission.
- Giving liberally and sacrificially of time, resource, and finance to serve the saints, the kingdom, and the world.
ETHOS
Ethos is the fundamental character and disposition that defines a community. Our ethos is described as relational, missional and borderless.
Relational
Our community is connected by relationship rather than religious observance, duty, style or personality. Our allegiance is to Christ and one another rather than to an institution, gathering or building. Therefore, connection to the community is established through interactive relationship, not by attending a service.
The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. This speaks of relationship; first with the Lord, second with others. To become a mature corporate man as expressed in Eph. 4:1-16, requires that every believer cultivate these two relationships such that we, both individually and corporately, can be presented complete in Christ.
We hold to the truth expressed throughout the New Testament that we, as living stones, are being built together into a habitation of God, according to the fellowship we have in His Spirit through the effectual working of each one.We worship together, serve together, bear one another’s burdens, share one another’s victories and sorrows, confess and repent to one another, and grow in our expression of Christ together.
Missional
We believe the missio Dei, mission of God, is bound to His eternal purpose: to glorify and reveal Himself as Christ, through His corporate body, to the earth, unto the finishing of this age. This realization forms the foundation for the functional aspects of our faith such as evangelism, discipleship, service and kingdom advancement.
We affirm that every believer is generally commissioned by the Lord to serve, give and make disciples. We also affirm that many believers have a unique commissioning for Spirit-led works to propagate the gospel and advance the kingdom. To that end individuals are being mentored, discipled, equipped and released into both their general and unique assignment for the Lord.
We value the local mission of God and are committed to transforming our city by establishing the presence of the kingdom in every social sector. We also value the global mission of God and are committed to sending individuals and groups to the uttermost parts of the earth to build Christ in people and build community with people.
Borderless
We embrace the truth of there being only one church in a city and are committed to building outward, not inward – towards the kingdom and a singular expression, not towards our unique corporate expression. Therefore we do not establish borders that restrict the saints from engaging other expressions of the Body throughout the city, nor do we consider ourselves as a distinct corporate entity. There is only one Body.
We do affirm that within the City of God there are many palaces, and respect the diversity of expression. However, we profoundly dismiss the concepts of “my church/your church” and “a church/the church.” We are seeking a city whose builder and maker is God and will give Him no rest until He makes Zion a praise in the earth.
We simply believe God is revealing a new normal for the corporate expression wherein divisive vocabulary, idealisms and practices are laid aside, without compromising clear biblical truth and present purpose. We will remain flexible in external form while retaining consistent internal characteristics in order that our community maximizes its kingdom effectiveness.