Our vision is the unified spiritual Bride of Christ, living and representing the gospel of God’s plan of salvation for humanity. Our mission is to nurture the church family as a spiritual organism, feeding the flock and sharing the gospel.
What God values and what the world values are often opposed to one another. There is a way of thinking and a matter of the heart that God values highly, which is conveyed the Old Testament word “contrite”. The meaning of this word includes “crushed, collapsed, bruised, beaten into pieces, or smitten”. The application of this is not physical, but spiritual, and it involves a voluntary crushing or subjugation of our natural, carnal mind that dwells within each of us. The Latin root word meaning a grinding down or wearing away suggests that this is a slow, continual process of identifying the aspects of our human nature that must be mastered and subdued over a lifetime. New Testament words convey a similar meaning with “poor in spirit” being one, meaning a mind that is destitute of wealth, influence, position or honor. This is not a physical definition, but one of a person’s state of mind and heart – or how one views oneself. Jesus Christ was the perfect example of this mind, having given up honor, influence, position and honor as a member of the Godhead, to voluntarily humble Himself, taking on the nature of a bond servant, to suffer and die a cruel death in order to pay the penalty for sin and redeem mankind. Jesus Christ set the example we should desire to emulate and be a people upon whom God looks and with whom He desires to dwell.
