Purpose & Philosophy Part 3. more words to describe us...

Attractional Church. We are also a “Come and See” church; inviting people to experience corporate worship on Sunday. We believe that the church in the New Testament was clearly organized for the sake of ministry and should hold to a centralized structure enough to maintain a high quality of ministry to her members. So in this sense we see ourselves as church that is attractional, gathering for the proclamation of God’s word and the worship of God’s people. The church’s contemporary worship style and relevant preaching messages will hopefully not only attract people from all backgrounds but equip them so that they can be sent out to establish other communities of faith!

Pursuing Diversity: We are a church that is seeking to be ethnically diverse not only in our congregation but in our leadership as well. We believe in order to reach a broader people group in our city and world we will need a diverse team. Predominately, the diversity in Phoenix is the Hispanic population. But there is also a great need for the gospel to penetrate tribal groups of Native Americans, and Refugees in the Phoenix area as well. Although our initial leadership team is all Caucasian and likely will be for sometime we hope to build a more diverse team to best bring the gospel to our increasingly diverse city.

Equipping/Sending: We are a church that if focused on equipping the church to be the church in our city. The church will function much like church in Antioch we read about in the book of Acts chapter 11 in the New Testament of our Bible. We will strive to reach various cultural tribes within our city by equipping and sending Christians within cultures to declare and demonstrate the gospel. We will equip and send out missional leaders to establish gospel centered communities. We will in time gather for Sunday morning for worship as we develop a leadership team and are ready to assimilate people into works of service etc.

Purpose & Philosophy Part 2: High on Culture & High in Biblical Content

We hold to missional practice for cultural relevancy. We, as a church seek to be the church that is extremely relevant to our culture, so that the lost may find salvation. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul engages a pagan people at Mars Hill. Paul took the task of making the timeless truths of the gospel message relevant for his hearers. This is called “contextualization.”

The Apostle Paul serves as our example. He made the gospel culturally relevant for the people of Athens. He understood their position on reality, the spiritual interests,he looked for common ground in their worldview, and challenged them to understand Christ!

The goal than is to make the gospel as relevant as possible while at the same time keeping high biblical content as as the source of truth. Note the Hughes Scale above, one would want to be in Quad B, if they are committed to being a church that is strongly committed to missional practices, high on culture and high on biblical content.

Practically this means
- We preach through books of the Bible as well as topics that relate to culture
- We dig theology and believe theological education should be taught more in the churches
- The people in our church look like and dress like everyday people, church will not be place where we polish up and come in our Sunday Best, we come to worship as sinful people in need of worship.
- We value culture, arts, music, business, economics, etc.
- We don't look at culture as the enemy rather the context in which we declare and demonstrate the gospel.

Church Purpose & Philosophy -Part 1

We are a church that holds to missionary posture not only for the world, but also for our city!

We function as missionaries to our communities and city, creating and cultivating faith communities in various sub cultures and people groups throughout the city. We are a missional church and people committed to the proclamation and incarnation of the gospel to and through culture.

We are a church that is re-positioning herself as the sent people of God, taking up apostolic-missionary roles within the body Christ, to equip believers and establish faith communities and churches.

•We hold to a missional identity: We see the church as the sent people of God to declare and demonstrate God’s righteousness for all peoples of the earth. We find continuity between the church and Israel, in their election and calling to serve as a light to the nations. We are the people continuing in the redemptive narrative of God’s people on earth.

• We apply missiological principles to our local community: We are not content in fulfilling the great commission in Mt. 28, by sending money to Africa, rather we will want to help start a church in an African Refugee community right in our own city. We commit to using similar terms, principles, and practices that are common to theology of missions, which is known as missiology.

• We embrace a missional theology: We believe that missional theology should be rooted to the Trinity. Mission is woven into the character and nature of God himself. Within the trinity, we see that God sent his son, (cf John 3:16). The Father and the son send the spirit, (cf. John 14, and Acts 2). Finally, we see that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send us, his people, to proclaim the message of the kingdom.

Culture.Theology.Gospel: learn & live in culture

Many churches can be seen as a vendor, dispensing spiritual goods and services. Offering A better life, a better future, a better career path, and some really cool WWJD bracelets. For those of you who don't know our dorky jargon, WWJD means "What Would Jesus Do!"

A clearer picture of the church should be seen as a people not just a place where we dispense goods and services. This produces consumers not strong Christians. We are the sent people of God, people living on mission in our city within our culture, not above it or against it, but in it. With this paradigm, culture becomes critically important if Christians will have a lasting influence in our society.

This may surprise some of you, especially if you come from a fundamentalist church background. Culture is not evil. In fact, culture is made by God. By definition, Culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.

Through out the scriptures we see Jesus himself authenticating his deity with his words and works within the culture he lived in. Remember Jesus himself left heaven and came down to earth. He embraced the culture without comprising his character. In the incarnation, He was born of the virgin Mary, 100% God and 100% man. He lived in our world and walked among us! He preached in public places. He went to weddings, parties and peoples homes. He was to say the least culturally connected.

For Christians to gain influence we must pursue cultural relevance w/o compromising character nor to the gospel message. We need to be a people who learn and live in our culture. Expressing the gospel in and through it, so that the gospel is better understood by our hearers.

Here is an exercise to test your abilities in understanding culture. More importantly this may serve as exercise that you can repeat on other songs, movies etc.

Brett Dennen, singer song writer recorded the hit song "Ain't no reason: on his album,"So Much More" which has been ranked the number-one folk download on iTunes.

Watch the video and take notes. Answer the following questions. According to the song...

1. What is the condition of man?
2. What is the state of our world?
3. Who or what sets us free?

Culture & Theology Series: Green Day Video:

A few years ago when I was working in the Dallas area as youth pastor my ministry partner and I discovered that most of the teenagers we were working with got their values, opinions and even theology from the music they listened to. It wasn't mom or dad it was MTV.

I am curious how many adults do the same thing? Maybe MTV isn't your deal. But I bet If you are like myself you might find yourself repeating phrases or regurgitating ideas from a popular song or movie. Right? We love it when a song or movie captures a feeling we have and puts into a musical masterpiece. It connects with us.

Music is powerful. What's sad but true is that many times people will allow music to form their worldview or theological framework without even knowing it. Check out the hit song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" from Green Day which was ranked as one of best singles of the decade according to Rolling Stone Magazine and was by far their most popular and successful song.



Here is what is true about this song. Our world has many broken dreams and life experiences. It is full of pain but not without promise. There is Hope. What's missing in the song, is hope and help that God offers. While there is pain Christians are promised by God that they will not escape it but be empowered to endure it. The Bible teaches that God is near to his children. God is present. God is active. He is intimately involved with his people in the person of the Holy Spirit, whom is said to be a counselor and constant helper.

While we constantly see the pain in our world we must remember that we are not alone. God is present. He is not dead. No matter the trial we face we must remember that GOD WALKS WITH US…IN THE MIDDLE OF PAIN.Rom. 8:38-39 Hebrews 2:18

Here are some principles for believers all over the world. There is assurance. We do not have to walk in this world alone.

• He is Present but doesn’t Pry - Psalms 139:7-12
• He is Available and He is Aware - Luke 12:7
• He is the Helper when we are Hurt - John 14

Recommended Resource: Inside Out by Larry Crabb

Life Series: Forgotten Picture of Marriage

Have you ever stopped to think of the purpose of Marriage? Or better yet do you know what the most powerful analogy/picture of marriage is? Or in other words do you know what your marriage was designed to reflect and look like?

It’s generally agreed among Christians today that marriage is designed for three purposes.

1.Procreation: In Genesis 1:28 the Lord tells Adam and Eve to fill the earth. This is a common theme and command to populate the earth, producing a Godly offspring throughout the scriptures.(Gn 9:1, Lv 26:9, Ps 127:5)

2.Pleasure: Although this more uncommon in ancient literature with exception of Songs of Songs, it is evident in the New Testament that marriage is designed to bring pleasure and comfort to one another both emotionally and spiritually. (I Cor 7:5).

3.Picture: We find a consistent analogy of marriage between a husband and wife in the Old Testament to reflect God’s relationship to Israel. In the New Testament we see that Marriages are to mirror, Christ’s love for the church. (Eph 5:25)

What’s amazing here is that our marriages are picture of God’s covenant love for his people! Just as God has love for the church (His Bride), So we husbands are to love our wives (our brides). Our marriages are then, powerful pictures to the world around us of God’s love and covenant commitment.

This is a life changing truth that should motivate us then

1.Avoid divorce at all costs, seeing that it would hinder and hurt the picture of God’s covenant love and damage our witness.

2.Embrace our duty in our marital relationship. Understanding that in marriage we are to reflect his image and represent a picture of God's faithful love to his church.

3.View marriage as a sacred pathway in growing closer to God. As married couples love each other they grow in their relationship with God and gain more influence in the world, serving God together and growing together.

Lean into your marriage! Cultivate it. It's a gift that is to be treasured and cherished. It's very design was to reflect God's love to a hurting world. It's your duty to strive towards reflecting a picture of God's love.

Recommended Resource: Sacred Marriage