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Centerlane's Vision |
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The following is a discussion of the core ideas that led to the forming of CenterLane and that impact the decisions we make in ministry and service. This is not in the purest sense a doctrinal statement, nor is it intended to be a comprehensive list of discipleship concepts, but is instead a statement of focus and vision, and hopefully sets out the essence of the things that we believe are truly important in service to Christ. DISCIPLESHIP 1. Mission CenterLane was founded with a specific scripture in mind - Acts 1:8 - in which Jesus told a small group of followers located in a single geographic area that: “. . .you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." The mission Jesus gave to His first followers has not changed, and if we are to “be one in spirit and in purpose” (Philippians 2:2b) and if we are to fulfill Jesus’ Call, we must evaluate everything we do and every decision we make in terms of that mission. We believe that if we focus on our calling, and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit in presenting the gospel of Jesus and the testimony He has given us, that we can in fact, reach to the ends of the earth. But, in order to accomplish this, many other priorities, ideas, projects and activities simply must be abandoned in favor of the call we have been given. 2. Individual Calling Every person who accepts Christ as Savior is also called to follow Jesus on the same terms under which He called his original disciples. Every person is a missionary, a minister, a servant, and a witness. Each person is called to give his or her whole life to Christ in service. Jesus does not call us to balance. Rather he calls us to count the cost of being a follower in spirit and truth and accept that cost. To one seeker, Jesus said “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:58. The cost of following Christ is that” He who loves his life loses it: and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.” Paul wrote: Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. I Corinthians 10:32-11:1. The example that Paul set was “to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” I Corinthians 2:2. It is in the kind of life that Paul modeled that true value is found. It is a life focused on Christ, and not the things of this world. It is this life of service to Jesus that will be “saved” - in other words, that will have value - for eternity. See I Corinthians 3:11-15, Matthew 25:14-30. 3. Identification We identify ourselves as “followers of Jesus.” Jesus said that He would acknowledge us before the Father if we acknowledged Him before men, (Matthew 10:32) and this is the best way we know to do this. Most of us come from traditions in which our primary identification was by denomination or individual church, and we believe that neither of these identities truly creates clear association with Christ, or promotes discussion of the testimony we have. 4. Witness Peter wrote that we should "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." I Peter 13:15(a). The most important gift each person has is the story of change that Jesus has performed in our lives. When Jesus called us to be “witnesses” He was calling us to give evidence of His salvation through the story of our personal experience - the things that we know are true because they have happened to us. If we overcome the powers of this world, it will be through the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Revelation 12:11. Without both the message of Jesus’ grace and sacrifice and that personal story of how it relates to our lives, we are not true witnesses. 5. Success Success is found in obeying the commandments of Christ, not in numerical growth. We are committed to a long term concept of ministry that says that God will give increase in His time. I Corinthians 3:6. Our task is to cast the nets by telling the story of Christ and the stories of our lives, and to cast them broadly, and to disciple those who come in so that they can live lives of long-term commitment. Jesus, in His “great commission” told us to go into all the world and make “disciples” or “followers” and that is our primary task. It is one that takes large amounts of time spent with small groups of people, helping and encouraging them as they wrestle with the cost of the Call. It is also one that requires allowing many to leave when they decide the cost is too high. But sooner or later, in His time, if we are faithful over the responsibilities He has left us, God will give increase, and it will be in such a way that the glory will be His, and not ours. Our ultimate goal is to bring people to Jesus, not bring them to church. CHURCH COMMITMENTS The principles listed above, together with our understanding of the workings of the early church, have led us to our current church model. In the context of that model, we are committed to the following ideas: Jesus - Jesus is our purpose for existing. Our goal is to place the message of His grace at the forefront of everything we do. We are committed to returning to His words in scripture for our basic understanding of the Call we have been given. Responsibility - The people of God are called as a group to the same type of responsibility for love, faith, hope, purity and mission that we as individuals are. This also means that we are called as a group to reflection on the decisions we make and for the church culture we create. Because we are responsible, we are also called to repentance where we find that as a group we are in error, either in doctrine, or is often the case, in love and service. It is our hope that through a commitment to this idea, we can create a community that is free from the devastation that is caused by a culture of gossip, social preference, irreverence, or simply a lack of love or of a hunger for God’s righteousness. Purpose - The purpose of an assembly of followers of Christ is primarily to encourage and equip those followers to return to the world where their real ministry is. It is to talk about Jesus and His role in our lives, and to provide a haven in ministry that we can come to in order to build one another up, so that we can walk back out the door and meet needs in people’s lives and tell them about the hope we have. Ministry - Ministry belongs to us as individuals responding to the Call. There is simply no way that an organization can replace the individual gifts that we have been given to conduct ministry where God has placed us in the world. Church should facilitate and encourage the ministry of individual followers of Christ, not replace their ministry. Leadership - We believe strongly in returning to what we see as a Biblical pattern of church leadership. The churches of the New Testament established groups of elders, who had proven their commitment to the cause of Christ and their service to their brothers and sisters in Christ prior to their selection from within the church. These elders were responsible for maintaining the spiritual focus of the body, and in our group, because of this, we ask that decisions that would effect the church, its ministry or its people be approved by the elders first. But the leadership of the church was vested in Jesus Christ. The pattern for Biblical decision making was neither democracy nor dictatorship, or even committee, but through consensus among those actively engaged in the church's ministry of the Gospel after prayer. See Acts 13:1, Philippians 2:2. While this idea of prayerful consensus violates most human principles of management, the scriptural pattern we see is exactly that - God directing and his people listening and following Him instead of a single man. Only in the context of church planting do we see sole authority vested in a single individual - such as the work Timothy was performing at Ephesus. And Timothy's goal was to raise up elders in that body so that he would no longer be that authority. We are committed to maintaining an environment in which God can raise up as many servants in ministry as are needed. We believe that this group will include multiple people that fill the role of pastoral care for the people within the church, just as it will include people that are evangelists, missionaries, and teachers. Christians should be very careful about claiming a call to or position of leadership. Christ has called us to be servants, and indeed specifically said "And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is Christ." Matthew 23:10. Resources - We simply do not see the need for large and costly church infrastructure. We are committed wherever possible to using the resources we have as a body to spread the message of Christ as far as possible outside our church boundaries, and to lovingly meet needs in peoples lives where we can do so. These two purposes, coupled with vision and compassion, will by themselves stretch our resources past their rational limits and into God’s provision. Location - We are where our people are and where there are needs to be met. We are committed to a church model that is flexible enough to expand past one or two locations, and can instead be actively engaged in ministry in the communities where its people are and where mission fields are. What this means in practice is that we are probably always going to be a home church based group. The advantages of home groups are numerous - they are mobile (we can move a whole group to a different community in our area without significant resource costs), they are inexpensive (they make use of already available space), they are friendly (people inviting people into their homes is a far greater measure of trust than a more sterile church building environment), they are more conducive to discussion (people are much less inhibited about talking about God issues in a living room than they are in a church pew, and they encourage service (from the people sharing their homes and from others who help in that ministry). Home groups also demand more - more flexibility, more openness to breaking down traditional expectations of church, more accountability to one another, and more willingness to get directly involved in the mission of speaking Jesus into people’s lives and encouraging one another. There are far fewer places to hide. They also demand that more people become able to disciple those who come to them. We are also convinced that the home group model we use is the model that was used by followers of Christ in the first century and we take that original heritage very seriously. As we develop more home groups, we are looking forward to rediscovering Biblical patterns of fellowship, with teachers, elders, and others moving between groups to broaden our knowledge and vision, and with followers of Christ from multiple groups engaging in ministry projects together. Families - It is supremely important in a world in which spiritual warfare is becoming more dangerous and more open on a daily basis for children to worship God with their parents and for them to see and hear their parents talk about Jesus. We are committed to encouraging an environment in which children and parents can meet together and praise and learn together. We believe that parents should be willing in the context of worship services to participate in discussions presented at the level of their children’s understanding, and children should learn to be respectful and listen when God is being discussed at an adult level. Community - True community comes from service together. We want to be part of and build a loving community in Christ, but we believe the best way to do so is to serve and reach out together. As Christians, we have one thing in common - Jesus. If we talk about Him together, and pursue His call together, and pray together, we form a community with a foundation that will not be moved. If we build a community on other common interests, or on personal attraction, we risk excluding those we are trying to reach, and even losing our purpose for existence. With regard to relationships, we are committed to building up one another, not tearing each other down, even in jest, and in resolving disputes on the principles established by Jesus and followed by Paul. Ephesians 5:4, Matthew 18:15-17, Galatians 6:1-6. Worship - Worship is how we live our lives and express our commitment to following Jesus through action. Paul wrote: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Romans 12:1. Jesus said that “This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:8. Praise is what we do when we sing and pray prayers of thanksgiving, and it expresses to God our emotional attachment and feelings of awe and gratitude toward Him, as David and others did in Psalms. I Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 5:19-20. We are committed to both, but especially to the idea that emotion is not a substitute for service. James 2:18-26. Confronting the World - We must be in constant search of places to share the message of Christ outside of our assembly. The example Jesus provided His disciples of casting their nets on the other side of the boat should motivate us to always seek God’s direction for new places to plant the Word and to tell our stories about Jesus. We are not called to isolation, but rather purity while living in the world and confronting the spiritual “world forces of this darkness.” Ephesians 6:10-20. Prayer - We are committed to being a prayer based group. Far too often we preach and even evangelize without significant serious prayer for the mission. We believe that for the message of Christ to be effective requires action by God in people’s lives, and that we far too often have not, because we ask not. Prayer focus is also important, and while we pray for one another, and the needs we have, we most of all are committed to praying for our ministry in the world, for people outside our group that we meet who are in need, both physically and spiritually, for vision for the mission and for lives of holiness and purity. We hope that we will both have the form of Godliness and acknowledge His power. CONCLUSION While we are committed to these ideas, we do not truly have a “church covenant” as such. If we are agreed in principle to service on God’s terms, we hopefully can live with one another and lovingly hold one another accountable on God’s terms. For how we relate to each other as believers, we feel the words of Christ and Paul’s letters are much more effective than an agreement we could reach and then set aside.
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