Our Vision
We exist to multiply fully devoted disciples of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus needs always to be our vision. Although his name is at the end of this vision statement, it is with Him that we start explaining it.
Jesus is the perfect Son of God. He is Lord. Saviour. Rescuer. Restorer. Creator. Sustainer. Provider. Healer. Friend. Wonderful Counsellor. Peace bringer. He is Holy and will one day return, victorious, bringing judgement and making all things new. Jesus is King of His expanding Kingdom and He calls us to be His disciples.
Disciples
Jesus calls us to follow Him. This call isn’t dependent on age or stage. Jesus calls us to himself. To learn from Him. To become increasingly like Him. To be holy. To imitate Him. It is through growing as a disciple that we increasingly and more accurately reflect the image of God that was placed upon us at creation. Faithfully and obediently bringing our lives under His Lordship and in His name, see His Kingdom advance. Being a disciple of Jesus is not something that can be done in a half-hearted way, but we are called to be fully devoted.
Fully devoted
When Jesus called the original disciples, we read that they left what they were doing and followed Him. They devoted themselves to following Jesus. The Early Church did the same. This devotion is an act of worship, taking our lives, every aspect and committing and submitting them to Jesus in an act of thanksgiving, praise and offering. Seeking to be fully devoted will naturally lead us to be Bible-saturated, prayerful and Spirit reliant people. Seeking to be fully devoted will lead us to be repentant people, humbly encountering the grace of Jesus daily in order to grow to become more and more like Him. Seeking to be fully devoted will lead us to do what Jesus did and fulfil what Jesus instructed us to do. This includes taking up the mandate to multiply.
Multiply
From Creation God gives us a mandate to multiply. To grow and fill the Earth with His image and rule and reign. As image bearers, disciples that are becoming like Him, and carriers of His presence by the Holy Spirit, our task is to fill the whole Earth. To do this each of us needs to reproduce and make other disciples, who in turn go and make other disciples. To do this we will need to connect with people relationally, see them restored back to God and then released into all that God has for them.
We
This vision is unachievable alone. The multiplication mandate is for us all- together being fully devoted disciples of Jesus and together multiplying them. Jesus calls us to be in community with one another and through our relationships and commitment to one another to grow as disciples in depth and in number.
Our Values
These values aren’t merely things that we hold as valuable, but statements that we also aspire towards and seek to grow in, both as individuals and together as a church community. When we look at the life of Jesus throughout the Gospels we see these values in his way of living and leading. In our desire to be more and more like him we seek to grow in these values and have them set our culture as a church.
Bible-saturated
We are a people seeking to be saturated in the Bible. At an individual and church wide level (and everything in between) we will seek to soak ourselves and our ways of doing things, in the Scriptures. We elevate Scripture and seek to saturate ourselves with it because of our elevation of God and belief that the Bible is His written Word. Through it we learn of Him and meet with Him. We will strive to read the Bible, understand it, boldly apply it more and more deeply and consistently, submit to it and lead our lives and this church in accordance to it.
Reliant on the Spirit
We cannot do anything without continuous reliance and openness to God the Holy Spirit. He leads us into repentance and revives us into new life. He points us to Jesus and enables us to grow to be more and more like Him. He gifts, equips, empowers and sends us as Jesus’ disciples to do what Jesus did. The Holy Spirit brings order and inspiration, brings life and challenge, brings healing and transformation. We are a people seeking to be reliant on the Holy Spirit.
Expectant in Prayer
We are a people who are expectant in prayer. Prayer is a gift from God. We celebrate that we can speak with the Mighty Creator God and through Jesus, can call Him Father. Our prayer life as individuals and together across our church seeks to be persistent, dynamic and faith-filled. Expecting that we can talk with God. Expectant that He hears us. Expectant that God speaks. Expectant that we can hear Him. We will be a people expectant that we will see answers.
People-focused
We seek to always be people-focused; choosing intentionally to notice the individual and connect with them. Disciple-multiplication, pastoral care, mission, gift activation and releasing are most effectively done when considering and connecting with individuals. Regardless of the size of the gathering that we are in, we will seek to be people-focussed.
Our Model
The process of multiplication of fully devoted disciples needs to take the model that Jesus used. He relationally connected with people and intentionally invested in his relationship with smaller groups of followers. It is through these followers that his mission of disciple multiplication then continued.
For a number of years, we have used the language of ‘reach, restore, release’ as a way of embedding a disciple-making/multiplying process into our DNA as a church. This remains our process. It is important to emphasise that each stage of this process needs to be done relationally. This is not a production line but a disciple-multiplication process. This is not a formulaic method but is observing how Jesus made disciples who multiplied and attempting to use his model.
REACH
reaching people with relational gospel encounters. People who are far from God (inside and outside the church) need to be reached in a relational way but not just with relationship, the Good News of Jesus needs to be shared.
RESTORE
restoring people to right relationship with and in Jesus. This is both those who are needing to make first time commitments to Jesus and also seeing various aspects of an individual’s life being restored by God into wholeness, repentance and healing.
RELEASE
releasing God’s placed potential in people and enabling them to reproduce and grow God’s Kingdom life. This will mean both being released from certain things in order to become fully devoted and also releasing gifts and callings in people in order to multiply disciples i.e. repeat the process of reaching, restoring and releasing in other people and places.