OUR MISSION

Our Mission

The church is a creation of God [Act 20:28, 1 Corinthians 3:9,17; 15:9] founded

and owned by Jesus Christ—“I will build My church” [Matthew 16:18] and

directed and energized by the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 10:17; 12:5-27; Romans

12:4-5]. Therefore, it is the church’s joy to look to God to explain His design for

the church and His mission for it. God’s mission for the church proves to have

several parts.

1. Our mission is to make disciples. Just before Jesus returned to heaven, He

commissioned His disciples this way: “Going into all the world, make disciples of

all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the

Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded

you” literal translation of Matthew 28:19-20. A disciple is a follower, someone

who attaches himself to his leader. Therefore, we reason, Jesus sent the church on its mission to acquaint people in every place with Himself. As the church

makes disciples, people can admire, worship, trust, follow, and obey Jesus as their

Savior and Lord. The church’s members, having become enamored of Jesus Christ,

assemble around Him as Master, Leader, Savior, and Friend. Our joyful mission is

to put Him on display to every nation.

2. Our mission is to glorify Christ. Paul wrote, “In Christ we were also chosen … in

order that we … might be for the praise of His glory” [Ephesians 1:11-12]. Part of

God’s purpose for the church is to exalt Jesus Christ by the way that the church

lives and by what it does. Christ designed His church to represent His

supernatural, life-saving work to the world. In His church, Christ shows to the

world what a freed and forgiven people can be—people who are satisfied with

God as the result of Christ’s joyful, triumphant self-sacrifice. He has planned the

church’s values to be His values. He expects its lifestyle to reflect His character [2

Corinthians 6:14-7:1; Ephesians 5:23-32; Colossians 1:13,18; 1 Timothy 3:15]. As

the moon reflects the sun, so the church is to reflect the glory of God to a dark

world.

3. Our mission to build up the saints. The church is to encourage and comfort its

individual members [1 Thessalonians 5:11; 2 Corinthians 13:11]. “There should be

no division in the body, but . . . its parts should have equal concern for each

other” [2 Corinthians 12:25] Jesus is the chief cornerstone, and the church is

likened to a building “joined together and [rising] to become a holy temple in the

Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which

God lives by His Spirit” [Ephesians 2:19-22]; see also 4:4–25). Jesus Christ

designed His Church to showcase God’s family on earth, so that the pagan world

can see how God builds His family around Jesus Christ and how that family cares

for one another [see Mark 3:35 and John 13:35].

Our mission is to know and love Christ so supremely as to represent Him and His

values accurately and vividly to the world and serve people’s deepest needs in the

way Christ Himself would meet them. Public worship is the encounter of the risen

Redeemer with His people; evangelism is calling men to the Savior; publishing the

law of God is proclaiming His lordship; Christian nurture is feeding His lambs and

disciplining His flock. The church’s mission is to present Jesus Christ to the world,

while He presents to the same world His rescuing work in and through His church.