“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” —Jesus, John 13:34–35

Mission

To glorify God by multiplying God-centered, big-hearted, hope-filled disciples of Jesus Christ.

Values

God-Centered

God is God, and we are not. He made us for himself. And as the ancient wisdom says, “our hearts are restless until we find our rest in Him.”¹ He is greater than the greatest being that can be conceived, which means that God is always better than we can imagine!²

Church is about Him, not us. It’s about praising God for the grace He has shown us in Christ. It’s about recognizing God for who He is as the King over all Creation.

All of life is to be centered on God. It is in glorifying Him that we find our deepest joy and resources for flourishing in all of life.

The Bible, in the Old and New Testaments, is God’s perfect, sufficient, authoritative, and final revelation of Himself to us.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” —Jesus Christ, Matthew 22:37–38

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” —Jesus Christ, Matthew 6:33

1. Augustine in Confessions, written 397–400 AD
2. Anselm in Proslogion, written 1077–1078 AD

Big-Hearted

We love all people because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Being big-hearted means loving everyone, and especially each other in the church, with generosity, sacrifice, initiative, and forgiveness. It means doing justice for the oppressed and showing mercy to the downcast (Micah 6:8). It means giving preference to those who are different from us, whether that difference is cultural, economic, ethnic, or otherwise.

Christ was big-hearted for us when he became a human, took the form of a servant, and stretched out His arms on the cross to save us from our sins. He loved us when we were unlovely, and His love has made us lovely in God’s sight.

In just the same way, we always strive to love one another and outsiders more and more, with the love of God.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” —Jesus Christ, Matthew 22:39

Hope-Filled

As God’s people saved by God’s grace through faith, we are the recipients of an unimaginable hope. Christ is risen from the dead, and one day we will be, too. We will be resurrected to live with God in the new heavens and new earth forever and ever.

There, God Himself will be with us. He will live with us, and we will be His people. “He will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3–4).

Filled with this certain hope, we live now with eternal perspective. Worries that used to cripple us no longer slow us down. Fears that used to control us no longer cause us concern.

We have been forgiven much and given a glorious inheritance. We live with love, grace, joy, and sacrifice in this world because we’re not living for this world. We’re living for the next!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” —The Apostle Peter, 1 Peter 1:3–5

Multiply

The joy and love that God has shown us in Christ is too good not to share! God is so great that like a stunning work of art He deserves the worship and praise of every human being.

Yet, apart from God, “all we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). We all worship other things: safety, family, security, power, sex, and anything else but God. But God loved us and sent His only Son, Jesus for us to free us from our false idols.

God Himself is the only object of worship that gives our human hearts what we’re truly searching for. We were made in His image to worship Him (Genesis 1:26–27). The path of joy, of life, and of wisdom is to worship God.

So we work to multiply maturing disciples of Jesus Christ—worshipers of the true God. We work to multiply for the glory of God, for the joy of all peoples in God, and for the good of the world.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” —Jesus Christ, Matthew 28:18–20