Our Vision

“…To passionately follow Jesus by LOVING GOD, LOVING PEOPLE, and
SERVING OUR WORLD.”

9 Core Values

LOVE GOD (A Worshipping Community)

1. Spirituality – Humanity is innately spiritual

• Innate spirituality is at the core of what it means to be human.  We are crafted in God’s own divine image and designed to be in a loving relationship with him.  Yet, due to humanity’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden sin entered the world and destroyed that relationship.   God longs to restore this broken relationship.  Through vain attempts humankind tries to fill the void that God alone can satisfy.  Only when humans seek and find God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will they find the “rest” that they long for.   (Genesis 1.26-27; 3; Matthew 11.28)

2. Sacred History – Worshipping God joins us to a sacred historical story

• Each week we gather to recognize that we are part of Sacred History.  God has been at work throughout the ages and invites all people to join his story.  This is expressed in our gatherings as we: teach the Bible, encourage each other in love, and practice the sacraments of the church (communion and baptism) in order to navigate our lives as a community in this future day.  (Hebrews 10.23-25; Acts 2.42-43)
• As part of Sacred History we are called to be the church all week long, not simply when we gather for an hour on Sunday.  Our gatherings are not the church in its fullness, but where we receive Biblical training that propels us outward into our world as missionaries.  Our goal each week is to seek to know Jesus Christ intimately and to discern how to embody the values of the kingdom of God all week long.  (Matthew 5-7)

3. Innovation – Structure must always submit to Spirit

• We earnestly seek the Holy Spirit’s leading and direction for the church.  The methodology we use to express our love for God is not concrete, but is fluid as the Spirit leads us to innovate and adapt in new ways.  Our human structures must always submit to God’s Spirit.  (Acts 15.28)

LOVE PEOPLE (An Equipping Community)

4. Community – Authentic relationships guided by God’s love can change the world.

• Throughout each week small groups of believers, called Life Groups, make up the larger whole of Neighborhood Church.  (Acts 2.42-47)
• Life Groups are designed to engage Christ-followers (and any with curiosity about Jesus) in authentic relationships with God and with people.  The early church often met in smaller environments and because of this, deep communal life was experienced as they shared in their common love for Jesus Christ and each other.  Through relationships, prayer, and reflection on the Scriptures; community is expressed in a way that can change lives.
• Each Life Group guided by the Scriptures and prayer discerns ways to make an impact in our city and our world.  Bi-monthly, these small groups serve our city through some kind of missional expression.

5. Equipping – Everyone has a role to play in God’s story

• The primary role of pastoral leadership is to equip others to find their unique calling and role in God’s story, for the good of the community of faith and the world.  (Ephesians 4.11-13)
• Christ’s church is his body whose various parts all work together.  As the people of God learn to grow in their ministry calling, each member complements all of the others in a way that cultivates a culture of mutual equipping. (1 Corinthians 12-14, Romans 12)
• Every follower of Jesus is gifted and called to ministry.  This does not mean that all are called into vocational ministry, but all are summoned by God to discover their gifts and to implement them for the good of the body of Christ (the people of God) and for the sake of the world.  (Ephesians 4.11-13; 1 Peter 2.9; Hebrews 4.14-16)
• A primary characteristic of a church that values equipping is servant leadership.  When we look at the model that Jesus demonstrated in the Gospels, we see that his way of ministry was to serve people.  The ultimate example of this is when he chose to humbly die in order to serve our world.  Everything we do as we live our lives in God’s story must follow after the way of Jesus: the way of servant leadership… the way of self-sacrificing love. (Luke 22.24-30; Philippians 2.5-11; John 13.1-20; Matthew 27.32-61)

6. Inclusive – There are no prerequisites to grace and love

• God’s beautiful and abundant grace is offered to all people in all places and at all times; therefore we love people and offer them grace no matter what wrongs they have committed.  We do not condone sinful behavior, habits, or lifestyles.  But we do believe that God’s grace can change lives.  This can be instantaneous for some, but for many others this may take time.  Nevertheless, we follow the model of God who loved us before we ever chose to respond to him.  We choose to love others no matter where they are in their spiritual journeys.  God is patient with people “wishing that all will come to repentance.”  We choose love over judgment. (1 John 4.19; 2 Peter 3.9; Ephesians 5.1-2; Matthew 7.1-5; James 4.11-12)
• Christ-followers are called to tear down the walls of separation that this culture has built to divide us from one another so that we may come together in authentic community.  (Ephesians 2.11-22; Galatians 3.26-29; Colossians 3.11)

SERVE OUR WORLD (A Missional Community)

7. Message – Jesus is the hope of the world

• When a person enters into a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit resides within them and they become a new creation.  (2 Corinthians 5.17; John 3.16-17)
• Jesus commissioned the disciples to tell the world God’s story, and therefore calls us to be messengers for the kingdom of God to those both in our city and throughout our world, sharing the Gospel of hope and truth with “gentleness and respect.” (Matthew 28.19-20; 1 Peter 3.15)

8. Movement – The church is a missional agent of grace, justice, and hope

• We partner with God and each other in a missional movement that is led by the Spirit who guides our journey as a community of justice, mercy, humility, grace, and hope.  (Romans 8; Micah 6.8)
• God’s mission will be fully accomplished when this world is free from all “death or mourning or crying or pain” which will be consummated by a final act of grace when Christ returns.  In God’s future world, we will be restored to right relationship to God, people, creation, and self.  Therefore, as a missional community, we partner with God in caring about what is near to his heart.  We want to show this broken world the hope we have in Jesus, by living like tomorrow’s world has already begun.  This means we stand up for the oppressed, elderly, marginalized, poor, disabled, widow, orphan, and all the broken places and people of the world; with the desire to join in God’s holistic mission to “gather up all things in heaven and on earth.” (Revelation 21.4; Ephesians 1.10; Colossians 1.19-20; Romans 8.19-27; Acts 4:32-37).

9. Contextual – Relevance to culture in any context in any age is not optional. 

• Being contextual does not mean compromise, but that we are committed to using language and methods that communicate the truth of the gospel of Jesus in accessible ways.  Everything we do starts in Biblical theology and is then translated into our culture.  (Acts 17.16-34; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
• Multi-Site – Convinced of the importance of being relevant to culture, we are designing various venues that are contextual in that they connect with people in various locations in diverse styles.  Just as the early church was not based in one location or confined to a homogeneous structure, our vision is to be one church, with multiple locations, and diverse expressions.  Our ministry team is in the dreaming stages about multi-site campuses so that we can expand our influence for the kingdom of God.