A Free Methodist
Church

Purpose & Values Page

Our Purpose:

We are about being a community, passionately:
Worshiping God
Loving and serving others
Guiding all into communion with Christ

We Value:

In alphabetical order

Balance - This means a time and a place for all good things.  It involves a harmony of devotion, work, play, and relationships.  It also implies emotional balance and health--that we reject a surface and phony uni-emotional approach to Christianity.  God created us with a full range of emotions and each has its appropriate time and place for expression.

Devotion - This means loving God.  It involves engaging in activities, attitudes, and thoughts that please God and open us to His transforming grace.

Incarnational Mission - This means conscious acting out by the church at every point that they are the embodied Christ; that what the church does and is, is how God is perceived and understood, and that the church is to complete the work of Christ to all peoples.

Integrity - This means honesty in life and speech.  We reject hypocrisy and situational morality, exaggeration as a means of impressing or manipulating; and it means that we see inner-change as the focal point of our maturing process.

People - This means commitment to our fellowship as co-members of Christ's Body.  It also means we actively love, honor, and evangelize all those for whom Christ died.  It means we interact with everyone with respect and honor.

Relevance - This means we value being culturally relevant, while remaining committed to Biblical standards.  It means listening carefully to contemporary society, and celebrating and participating in the good it offers.  We are committed to communicating and living God's timeless truths in a way that modern people can understand with mind and heart.  

Responsiveness - This means being open to influence from others, especially from God.  It involves continued learning, growing, and humility.  It means being attentively obedient to God.

Service - This means being fully participating members of Christ's Body.  We are a unified community of men and women striving to have each person serving in one's areas of giftedness. 

Simplicity - This means we recognize contentment and joy are gifts from God, not from our socio-economic status, nor from our material possessions.  It is using our means to cooperate with God and advance His Kingdom.  It also involves rejecting the complexity and duplicity of many and competing loyalties.

Stability - This means commitment and fidelity.  It involves a refusal to run away from God, ourselves, others, and difficult circumstances.

Credits to Willow Creek Association and Renovare' for help with phrasing and thoughts.