Values and Beliefs

Worship The bible teaches us that there is one God. It also teaches us that the one God can be known as a good Father, as the Father's son, who is Jesus, and as the Holy Spirit. Confused? Think of Neopolitan Ice Cream - One block of ice cream, but three flavours - three in one. Now just as we can experience the love of God, the bible also teaches us that we can actually have a relationship with God. In that relationship we can get to know the different flavours of God (to stick with the ice cream analogy.)

Worship is one of the primary values we have as a church. Because we have experienced God's love for us, we want to express our love for God. Our aim as a church is not to get carried away with one particular aspect of God, but, to worship Him as He is - Father, Son and Spirit.

This isn't just something we do when we get together as a church, but is something that flows from our whole lives. The way we live actually communicates how much God is worth to us. Worship is simply telling God that we think He's worth it!

When we all come to do that together we hope that what we do is in accordance with what the bible teaches us about worship. This is not just us doing our own thing but that it is somehow infused with God's presence. That we are passionate, intimate with God and relevant to today.

Mission Mission is a part of who God is. He is always doing stuff as an overflow of who He is, and what God does is mission. God is known as Father, Son and Spirit (read about ice cream above) and all three parts of God are involved in this mission.

We hope to get in on God's mission by telling people the good news about God. God wants everyone to get into right relationship with Him and get involved in His activity. We call this salvation, because God is saving, you, me and the whole world from the mess we made of things by trying to do things our own way. As part of this activity we get involved in working for justice, in acts of compassion and hope to care for the environment.

Community In the western culture that we live in we see community disintegrating. Many people have experienced this within their lifetime, and many people suffer as a result.

God's plan for the church is that it is meant to live in community and be community in the way that he planned for humanity to live together all along. A place of love, truth and acceptance. Interdependence, burden sharing and caring for one another. We've not arrived yet, but while we are not perfect we are a community on a journey and we long for as many as possible to join together with us on the journey.

Discipleship In the section about community it said "We're not there yet." Although we can experience amazing transformations when we experience God's love and grow in relationship with Him, we do not become perfect. Our goal, what we consider to be "getting there" is to in some way become like Jesus.

Discipleship is when people apprentice themselves to Jesus, determine to follow Him and His example of a life of love. Many of the different activities that the church gets involved are set up to help us all to get further along on this journey of learning to be like Jesus. You don't have to be a high flyer seeking to become an apprentice to Alan Sugar, you can all join in a life long course of learning from the one who made the universe. How amazing is that?!!!