I want you think for a moment about the letters of Paul. In each and every letter, he begins by going through statements about WHO he his and WHAT God has made his people to be. Only after firmly establishing their identity Vision 2019 does he ever work at giving them instruction on what to do. Christ Presbyterian Church That’s what I want to do today: talk about who we are . Organizational guru cpcoxford.org Patrick Lencioni says that organizations are healthy only when they are clear about who they are AND when they have worked that clarity throughout their organization, or what he calls “alignment.” Since I arrived this summer, the leadership of this church has been working to formulate a way of talking about the values and mission of this church that is Biblical, coherent, and transferrable. What we’ll talk about today is the fruit of that work. Mind you, none of this discussion represents any CHANGE in the church’s mission or direction. Rather, it’s NAMING our identity so we can talk more clearly about how to accomplish this mission.
My intention is to help us know what the Bible calls us to be generally speaking and what our leadership is convinced we NEED to be given our history, our location, and Vision 2019 our future. All together, we refer to these topics as our “philosophy of ministry.” Think of it this way: • PURPOSE PRINCIPLES POSTURE PASSION how do you talk about Christ Pres? • When people ask you about your church, what do you say? • What do you love the most about our fellowship here? WHO WE ARE WHAT WE LOVE HOW WE ACT WHAT WE DO Every member of this church ought to be able to answer those questions or else we really aren’t able to do e ff ective evangelism and ministry among this community. Who are we as a church? What do we believe God has called us to do. I’d like to answer that question by identifying FOUR headings under which we are going to group our approach to ministry: OUR PURPOSE OUR PRINCIPLES OUR POSTURE OUR PASSION What do I mean by these headings? Well: • Our purpose answers the question “Who are we?” What is our purpose at the most fundamental level? Why are we here at all? • Our principles answer the question “What do we love?” What topics do we return to most often as a church? What do we “harp” on here? • Our posture answers the question “How do we act?” What is distinctive about how God has been at work among us to create our flavor, our vibe? • Our passion answers the question “What do we do?” What is the specific mission God has uniquely gifted US to do? What can we do that most can’t?
Let’s focus on our Purpose for a moment. PURPOSE For the last two years, you have heard the leadership of this church present to you a statement about what makes our church tick that goes like this: Christ Presbyterian Church seeks to be a HOME for those who have found But where did that come from? Is it just a marketing tool to say something HOPE in the Gospel and a place of religious about our gatherings? HEALING for the world. No. This purpose has been worked over and thought through. Let’s do some work on where we got this language.
CLICK 1: The first question any church needs to ask is, “What is our reason for being?” What is ANYTHING’s reason for being? Why is there “something” rather than “nothing” in the universe? We Fall answer that question by saying this: the universe exists as the theater for the glory of God . We are CROSS Broken Vertical Relationship (HOPE) who we are because HE is actively bringing glory to himself. All of our work is done for, to, and by his grace. This is the ultimately BIG PICTURE of life…the glory of God. H E God brings Kingdom Biblical A glory to And Image Storyline God’s Mission L himself Bearers I N CLICK 2: So when God decided to enact this purpose, he did so by fashioning a theater, a realm…or G Creation Fall what the theologians call “a kingdom.” This was the place where God was going to reveal his glory, Redemption CHURCH Consummation Broken Horizontal (HOME) Relationship but he would do so through special creatures that were created “in his image,” special creations that would uniquely bear his glory to the whole universe. CLICK 3: What follows was, to put it simply, a story. Events took place that laid out in big story arcs that would become a pattern for all stories to follow: Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation was the trajectory of every Bible story from that time forward. CLICK 4: But by far the most cataclysmic of events was the fall. This was when man pulled himself out of alignment with God’s good creation. Two things resulted. CLICK 5: First, there was a broken vertical relationship with God. You know this from Genesis 3 because man HID from God. He’s guilty. He’s estranged from him. CLICK 6: Second, there was a broken horizontal relationship with each other. You know this from Genesis 3 because the man and the woman know they are naked. That means that there was shame that drove them apart from each other. CLICK 7: Well, God’s answer to the alienation existing between him and his people is the Cross of Christ. THAT is our only HOPE. The Cross is not good advice, it’s good NEWS. This is what we proclaim week in and week out here. It is the power of God to salvation, etc. CLICK 8: But God’s answer to the shame that separates and harms his people is an institution he’s building called the CHURCH. And the gates of hell won’t prevail against it. If God is our Father, then the Church is our mother, said the old church father. Nurturing, protecting, teaching, loving…just like a good mother. THIS is the “homey feel” that so often characterizes Christ Pres in our community. CLICK 9: But there’s more, our HOPE and our HOME are not just for US. If we are to live the way in which God wants us to live, we have to be about HIS mission. What is that mission? To fix the world from the e ff ects of sin and darkness. In other words, our purpose HAS to include an “outward look” to our community so that we can be a source of healing for the world. Hence, the HEALING.
So that’s our purpose: we preach a HOPE that formed a HOME and began a Vision 2019 HEALING. But what about the Principles? What do we mean by those? PURPOSE PRINCIPLES POSTURE PASSION WHO WE ARE WHAT WE LOVE HOW WE ACT WHAT WE DO
Well, begin with our three words: Hope, Home, and Healing. PRINCIPLES Each of these headings correspond to a HUGE Biblical topic that form our preoccupation, these are our big ideas, the things we harp on. There are HOPE HOME HEALING topics that everyone should know and become committed to after just a short time as a member of our church. What are they? THE GOSPEL THE CHURCH THE KINGDOM HOPE- The Gospel HOME- The Church HEALING- The Kingdom These topics should become consistent topics of conversation, understood by each and every member to be conversant with their lost neighbors with and helping to organize how we teach the Bible’s view of ministry.
So you can see how the purpose and the principles are closely related and Vision 2019 interconnected. Two ways of expressing the same thing, but for di ff erent purposes. What about “posture”? PURPOSE PRINCIPLES POSTURE PASSION WHO WE ARE WHAT WE LOVE HOW WE ACT WHAT WE DO
Remember a “posture” has to do with “how we ACT.” These are our behaviors or the vibe we put o ff to the community. They represent the mode of our ministry or how it’s packaged. Let me give you some that we’ve arrived at: POSTURE BIBLICAL- you may not realize it, but CPC is distinct in this community for our Culturally Biblical Engaged commitment to Scripture. We believe that God’s word is really all that we have to say to any of you. We’re not here to host the Curt Presley Show or the Les Newsom Campus Hospitable Aware Celebratory Incarnational Show, but faithful exposition of God’s Word applied to every area of life. HOSPITABLE- Christ Pres sees our ministry as an outgrowth of Biblical welcome, inviting people into this fellowship and enfolding them in loving ways. Caring for them. CELEBRATORY- we LOVE to throw parties at CPC. If there’s something going on, when in doubt, let’s celebrate that. It’s a universal truth that you always get more of whatever you celebrate in life. We want to cheer each other on to love and good deeds here. INCARNATIONAL- That’s a fancy Bible word that simply means, we want to show up in people’s lives. We don’t want to do ministry from the cheap seats, boycotting this and “taking stands” against that. Instead, we want to be present in Oxford in a way that we can be salt and light to the community. CAMPUS AWARE- There are a lot of students in Oxford. Half of our community to be exact. That means that we have to minister in a context that always keeps them in mind. Sometimes that’ll mean reaching out specifically to them. Other times it means participating with RUF and IV in reaching out to campus. CULTURALLY ENGAGED- By this we mean that we have a view of life that is determined to interact with the culture around us, not run away from it. We want to be a place that engages the arts, sports, education, economics, social change…all from the perspective of a Bible world and life view that sees Jesus Lordship over every area of life.
So our posture is a vital way of maintaining a shared sense of identity as a Vision 2019 church. Finally, we need to talk about our “passion.” PURPOSE PRINCIPLES POSTURE PASSION WHO WE ARE WHAT WE LOVE HOW WE ACT WHAT WE DO
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