OUR COMMISSION
- OUR COMISSION
- TO MAKE DISCIPLES
- TO LIVE MISSIONAL
- TO LIVE POSITIONAL
- TO LIVE RELATIONAL
- TO LIVE INTENTIONAL
- TO LIVE INVITATIONAL
- TO PLANT CHURCHES
- REACH CITIES
- ALIENS – LIVING AS GOD’S PEOPLE IN THE CITY
- AMBASSADORS – LIVING FOR GOD’S MISSION IN THE CITY
- ARTISTS – LIVING TO GOD’S GLORY IN THE CITY
“The great commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed”
Hudson Taylor
“The true measure of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.”
Mike Stachura
“Someone asked: Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? My question is how we — who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not — can be saved?”
Charles Spurgeon
OUR COMISSION
God’s plan is that the whole earth shall be full of his glory, and that Christ will be believed and worshiped of an innumerable multitude from all nations, tribes, people and languages, who have been redeemed and reconciled to God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything we do as a church is greatly influenced by our conviction that the Great Commission applies directly to us. That means that we are committed to preaching the gospel, making disciples, planting churches and reaching cities, everywhere God sends us. We believe that we fulfill our mission by serving God in everyday life, in our personal relationships as well as through organized missions around the world, both locally and globally. We also believe that the gospel is always characterized by love and concern for our neighbor in a very practical sense. In particular, people living in need and poverty, or suffering in other ways.
This is the mission we are dedicated to serve by God’s grace for God’s glory.
Matthew 28:18-20
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
TO MAKE DISCIPLES
The great commission for every believer is formulated: go and make disciples. It is not about to drawing visitors, creating crowds, recruiting members or counting fans. Missional is not optional if we want to be true to our Master’s calling. The Gospel is both the motive and the message of the mission. It is only the revelation of the Gospel that creates the true and right motivation for the mission. When the Gospel is our greatest treasure, sharing it will be our greatest pleasure.
TO LIVE MISSIONAL
Mission is not primarily something we do for God, but something God does through us. We are missionaries by our very calling as Christ’s disciples. God sends the whole Church with the whole gospel to the whole world. Mission is therefore not just something you and I support, but something of which we are a part. It’s not about a missional program, it is all about being missional people. Some missionaries are sent to the other side of the earth, while others are sent to the other side of town or the other side of the street. If we are living next door to poverty, or prosperity, our assignment is to be missionaries right there.
TO LIVE POSITIONAL
Be present in your current position. God wants to use us right where we are, in our neighbourhood, community and social network where we live our lives. It’s in our natural and everyday relationships that God positioned us for our mission. We should therefore not let our future vision cloud our everyday mission. Mission is not for professionals, it takes place in everyday life through ordinary believers rather than by extra-ordinary superheroes. It is not something that is done by pastors with only the support of the believers; it is rather the other way around, it is done by ordinary believers with the support of pastors.
TO LIVE RELATIONAL
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, Jesus asked rhetorically. In our sometimes very big ambitions to “make history” we easily overlook our own backyard and neighbourhood. We as individuals might not be able to reach the whole world but we can touch the people all around us. Mission is therefore all about relationships. One of the biggest lies in the church today is that we don’t reach out to the world. But the truth is that every week we’re in touch with thousands of people outside the church through our relationships at work, school and leisure activities. It is through human relationships that the mission of the church is realized.
TO LIVE INTENTIONAL
It is easy to see life as a long string of boring routines that are repeated over and over again week in and week out. Often we think that mission means that we need to do something more or something different, something wholly unique. But our call is rather to see the opportunities where we are. Share meals with others and not just with our families and friends. View the football game together, rather than alone. Rather than consider these things as insignificant activities we must realize that God has placed us in them. We should therefore make the most of every opportunity that we get. We should live prayerfully. We should be alert, observe and listen. We should be attendant to the needs all around us. We should take every chance to celebrate what can be celebrated, together with others. We should recognize and encourage the good everywhere we find it. We should share life’s ups and downs and volunteer to carry the burdens of others. The gospel frees us to be a human and not hide our weaknesses and challenges to others. God is at work precisely in our struggles of everyday life and wants us to open up our lives so that others can see God’s grace at work in our lives. We shouldn’t be preachy and talk down to people but be willing to share our faith when people ask. We cannot share the Gospel without sharing ourselves. The Gospel enables us in this way to become the neighbour everybody needs, by God’s grace and for God’s glory.
TO LIVE INVITATIONAL
We don’t have to be afraid if we don’t have all the answers. The truth is that none of us have all the answers to life’s challenges. Instead we can use difficult questions as opportunities to invite and introduce people to the church’s fellowship and worship. We have many testimonies of what a significant impact it has made to new people to share and experience both the everyday fellowship and Sunday worship. Studies show that seven out of ten secular people would say yes if a close friend invited them to his church. The problem is that most secular people do not share daily life with a Christian friend. Let us therefore live missional and positional, being relational and intentional, and when the opportunity comes, being invitational.
What if each one of us was committed to reach and disciple one new person from our social network over the next 12 months?
TO PLANT CHURCHES
Local churches are God’s method to advance the kingdom, spread the gospel and make disciples. Church planting is therefore the biblical and most effective method in fulfilling the great commission. Our vision is to form and multiply a network of missional communities and worshiping neighborhood churches all over our city, which will incarnate and contextualize the Gospel in their specific environment and culture.
We do not just fill the church with people. We want to fill the city with churches. We do not just take people to church. We want to take the church to the people. The church is more than a building or a service where we gather. It is communities of believers strategically scattered all over the city where we share faith, hope and love in everyday life.
We want the church to be more than just a big event to go to on Sunday. We would rather promote up close and personal community in everyday life. Therefore we choose to strategically multiply smaller and simpler churches rather then building one large and more spectacular church.
We do not just add the number of members; we want to multiply the number of churches. We want to plant several small churches across the city in different neighborhoods and suburbs where people actually live and do life. Therefore, we do not only count the number of people in our church but also count the number of potential churches in our people.
We want to keep the pioneer spirit alive by constantly planting new churches in new places, locally and globally.
We want to be a missionary movement that equips and sends missionaries rather than simply gathering and maintaining believers in sanctuaries.
What if we in every city where we already exist would start the process of planting one new church during the next year?
REACH CITIES
In the book of Acts, we follow the spreading of the gospel, the planting of new churches and reaching new cities from Jerusalem to Rome. It follows a clear pattern of focusing on major cities and population centers. The first Christians did not withdraw from the big city challenges, but rather saw them as strategic centers of touching different cultures. Today almost 75% of the world lives in cities. Cities are the hub for opportunity, education, employment, entertainment, culture, media, governing bodies and most of all: people. The metropolitan cities influence regions and nations. When churches withdraw and retreat from the cities we’re at the same time retreating from our commission. The city can be expensive, rough, stressful and challenging to live in. But if we want to reach the world – we have to reach the cities. So how do we live to reach the cities?
ALIENS – LIVING AS GOD’S PEOPLE IN THE CITY
The Church is like a city in the city. We live in the world but are not of the world, living simultaneously as citizens and strangers. We are same, same and yet different. God has set us apart to reflect his grace and glory. In this world we are resident aliens that march to a different beat, taking our cues from the word of God and do not conform to culture of this age. We don’t want to stand out so much that we don’t fit in, but we don’t want to fit in so much that we that we don’t stand out. We live in tension between two worlds. If we don’t feel the pressure we have either cocooned from the world or conformed to the world. We practice faithful presence and participation in our world making the most of every opportunity to love and serve. As disciples of Jesus Christ we will constantly find ourselves out of step with the surrounding culture and forming an alternative counter culture that reflects the coming kingdom of God, offering a community of hope, unconditional love, grace and truth. We rejoice over and receive the good in culture. We reject the evil and sinful. We redeem and restore that which is broken and bent out of shape to bring praise to God’s glory and grace.
AMBASSADORS – LIVING FOR GOD’S MISSION IN THE CITY
We are in this world on a mission from God. As ambassadors we’re representing a foreign kingdom on away ground. We build relationships and promote reconciliation. We build bridges not walls. We cultivate peace and do not start wars, make connections, contend for the Gospel but do not engage in combat. We are not driven by personal ambitions, carry out our personal agendas and don’t air personal opinions. We’re only heralds and messengers that pass on the message from our King – the good news of the gospel of grace that promises redemption, reconciliation and restoration in Jesus Christ. We are not responsible for the result; we trust the saving power of the gospel and rest assured in God’s sovereign rule and reign.
ARTISTS – LIVING TO GOD’S GLORY IN THE CITY
As Christians we live all of life under two banners: Coram Deo and Soli Deo Gloria – to live our entire life under the authority of God, in the presence of God and to the glory of God alone. We are convinced that our chief end, our deepest satisfaction and our highest joy in life is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. God is the center of which the universe revolves and we’re not. Therefore we don’t divide our life in secular and sacred, what we do for God and then everything else we do. A divided life lacks unity and integrity, and therefore it’s marked by inconsistency and disharmony. Everything we do, we do in God’s presence, by God’s power and for God’s glory. This gives tremendous purpose to our life in the city, whether we celebrate or create, in private or in public, in business or in pleasure – whatever we encounter we recognize that: from Him, through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever.
Each disciple makes another disciple.
Each church plants another church.
Each city prays and prepares to reach another city.
By God’s grace for God’s glory!