Things That Are Important to Us
1. God
We are not the most important beings in the universe. God is. And He is jealous for his own glory. The deepest longings of the human soul can only be satisfied when we delight in God’s supremacy and rest in his kindness.
We realize that you may not yet be convinced that God is primary. You may not even buy into God’s existence. But we won’t take God off the table and talk about other things until you decide that you like him. We’d rather be honest. We’re committed to talking and living as though God actually matters. As humans, we derive our worth from being made in God’s image, and our hearts bear the mark of his design. St. Augustine said long ago, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
2. Gospel
The gospel is the news that because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we can be pardoned for and turn away from our rebellion against God and joyfully give allegiance to King Jesus forever, the one who is restoring and renewing his people and his creation. Relying on this gospel isn’t about being religious. We realize that our motives for being both religious and anti-religious are essentially the same and essentially wrong—we’re seeking to be our own saviors and keep control of our own lives.
Trusting in the good news of a new and better King is not a one time event, but a path of ongoing renewal and repentance that we are to walk each day of our lives. In other words, we want to bring all things “in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14) because, quite simply, the gospel changes everything.
3. Community
When people experience the power of this gospel, they band together in community to encourage and celebrate with each other. God does redeem people individually, but this redemption is always into a community – a family, a school of learners, a band of servants. So we view close-knit, honest, intentional relationships as a non-negotiable when it comes to being a follower of Jesus.
4. Mission
People who are being changed by the gospel can’t keep the grace of God a secret. They are compelled outward – beyond themselves. They want to embody and speak the good news into every corner of the world. And because they are pardoned rebels themselves, their posture is one of humility, joy, and sacrifice as they befriend and love anyone and everyone.
5. Strong Men
We aim to be a strong, godly church full of strong, godly families. This starts with strong, godly men. We call our men to be spiritual leaders in their homes, loving and leading their wives and training up their children to love Jesus. We call our women to passionately pursue God and to follow the lead of godly husbands. We call children and teenagers to respect and obey their parents. We live together as a family, with all our people (kids included) working together to mutually build one another up.
6. Head & Heart
God is not honored by either a joyless, loveless intellectualism or by an unthinking, uncritical emotionalism. Both are needed: minds that are gripped by the truth of God acquired through the serious and rigorous study of Scripture, and hearts that are on fire with intense emotions of love for God and His glory.
What God wants most is our hearts, and he reaches our hearts through our heads. It’s through seeing and understanding the greatness of God through the truth of Scripture that our hearts are ignited with a burning passion for God.
7. Simplicity & Sacrifice
The goal of life is not to be content and comfortable – it is to die daily to ourselves for the sake of life in others and joy in Jesus. As individuals, each person must determine for herself how God wishes for her to live out a lifestyle of simplicity and sacrifice – tangibly proclaiming that Jesus is her treasure and all else is trinkets.
This simplicity carries over into our church community. As a church we gather regularly to pour life into each other so that we might continually give our lives away in service to Jesus, and we love for anyone to join us. But we don’t want to win you with smoke and lights. We also won’t pull the bait-and-switch to draw you in and keep you. We’d rather keep it simple: equipping you to understand, be transformed by, and live out all the implications of the gospel. This also means we don’t look to attendance as the driving evidence of success. Instead, we consider ourselves successful to the degree that we are faithful with what God has called the local church to be and to do. So we stay busy with our depth and leave the width up to God.