Vision + Values
As disciples of Jesus, we are all called to be on mission daily as “sent ones” (John 20:21). Some disciples have a unique calling and are sent to bring the good new of Jesus and plant new churches like Barnabas and Paul. They were sent out by the Holy Spirit and a local church on this mission (Acts 13:1-4). Like Antioch, churches who are part of the Sent Network aspire to regularly send church planting teams into the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond to proclaim the gospel, make disciples, and form them into growing reproducing churches (Acts 13:21-23; 19:8-10; Colossians 1:3-8). Bay Area Community Church’s vision for this birthed the Sent Network which encourages kingdom minded churches and catalytic leaders to follow the Spirit and reproduce disciple-making churches who are faithful to the mission of Jesus as ”sent ones.”
OUR VISION
Lives, neighborhoods, and cities renewed
through reproducing faith communities
of gospel centered disciples of Jesus
Each church planting team is free to contextualize the gospel and adapt the forms of their church to relate to the people groups in each location they seek to reach. The values1 we are committed to may be summarized as follows:
VALUES
Jesus / Gospel Centered
1. Real Disciple making
2. Missional-Incarnational Impulse
3. Empowering “E4″ Teamwork
4. Creative Transformation
5. Reproducible-Adaptable Approaches
Jesus / Gospel Centered - Jesus is our passion. Christology is a big deal to us. The person and work of Jesus is central to us! The incarnate, crucified,risen, ascended, reigning, and returning Christ is our focus. We love God back because he loved us first in Jesus. We celebrate him and the spiritual blessings in him–justification, reconciliation, redemption, the Holy Spirit’s empowering presence, adoption, and the confident hope we have of resurrection into the new heavens and earth. This radical grace fuels radical allegiance. We seek to demonstrate this allegiance by learning from him daily and obeying him faithfully. We reject a dualistic view of the world which divides life into the sacred and secular. Therefore, there is no aspect of our everyday life that is off limits to Jesus’ reign over us as individuals or in our life together as a community. It is King Jesus’ agenda that we humbly seek to submit to, not our personal agendas, traditions, or institutional preferences. As we seek him first, we can then embody the gospel as we proclaim the gospel. Flowing from this epicenter of Jesus and the gospel are several other commitments we intentionally foster among our church plants and Network. (Mark 1:9-11,14-15; Acts 2:29-36; Rom.10:1-17; I Cor. 15:1-4; 2 Cor. 11:3-4; Phil.1:27; Col. 3:1-4; Heb. 1:1-3; Rev. 5; Titus 2:11-14; 3:5-7)
1. Real Disciple Making – Discipleship is not a program we finish. It is a lifelong process of growing into his likeness in every facet of our life. We seek to be and make disciples who obey Jesus’ teaching and walk as he walked. Jesus said if we, like branches, abide in him as the True Vine, we will bear fruit… more fruit… and much fruit, proving to be his disciples who glorify His Father in heaven (John 15:1-8). I John 2:6 describes the nature of this fruit in abiding disciples when saying “whoever says he abides in him aught to walk in the same way in which he walked.” Disciples who truly abide in Jesus walk more and more like Jesus over time. Each church plant in our Network seeks to cultivate regular spiritual practices or disciplines that intentionally help disciples keep vital connection to Jesus and grow into his likeness by the Holy Spirit’s empowering presence. This means modeling simple, life on life approaches that can be practiced and passed on by all growing disciples. (Matt. 5-7; 28:18-20; Luke 6:46; 9:18-36; John 13:31-35; 15:1-8; I Jn 2:6; Rom. 8:29; Eph. 4:13; 6:10-20; Col. 1:28; 3:1-17; Cor 3:18; Gal. 5:21-31)
2. Missional-Incarnational Impulse – Missional means we keep going “out” and incarnational means we go “in” among people far from God. We go out to people groups without Jesus rather than expecting them to come to us. This is what Jesus did. He left his place of power and privilege and went among people to both show and tell the good news (John 1:14; Mark 1:14-15). Jesus said, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). We are a sent people! We will try to avoid extracting those who begin to follow Jesus out of their context, rather we will encourage the good news to spread by allowing fresh expressions of church communities to be raised up among these contexts. (John 1:14; 20:21; Luke 5:27-32; 15; Matt. 5:13-16; Philippians 2:1-8; Romans 15:20-21; 2 Cor. 5:16-21)
3. Empowering “E 4” Teamwork – E 4 refers to Ephesians chapter 4 which teaches that the ascended reigning Christ gives ministry gifts to his church body. Our churches seek to empower diverse ministry by every member of Christ’s body while maintaining unity so that we grow up to the full stature of God’s Son (Eph 4:13, 16). Who will equip Christ’s wonderfully diverse body? King Jesus gave particular gifts to help activate or equip the wide variety of other gifts in his body. These equipping gifts (apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding and teaching – A.P.E.S.T.) prepare God’s people for works of service (Eph 4:11-12). When APEST equippers demonstrate Christ like character and humble teamwork, they empower the other gifts in Christ’s body resulting in ministries of edification, evangelism, and expansion. (Eph. 4:1-16; Acts 2:41-46; 13:1-4; 14:21-23; 15:6; I Cor. 12-14; 2 Cor. 8:16-24; 2 Tim. 2:1-2; 4:5; Titus 1:5; Rom. 15:14-33).
4. Creative Transformation - The gospel of the kingdom points us to a world that Jesus will restore completely. We anticipate the new heavens and earth in which all will be just, reconciled, and beautiful. His kingdom will come, but is already here in part. Where Jesus reign is received His kingdom has come. We who live under his reign have the opportunity now to be a “sign” or foretaste of the coming kingdom by the way we live our everyday lives. As we live among people and systems of the old order, we can humbly seek God for fresh creativity to bring transformation and good where injustice, fractured relationships, sickness, pain, and darkness exist. With God’s help, we try to become creative agents of change that point to the true hope of the future kingdom that awaits all who repent and believe the gospel. When communities of Jesus disciples serve the poor, help heal the hurting, work for justice, demonstrate reconciliation, care for creation, and bring forth beauty through the arts, we “showcase” the not yet kingdom in part now. This transformation of culture, while partial, is a significant foretaste of God’s kingdom that will come in all of its fullness when Jesus returns and establishes the new heavens and earth. (Gen. 1:26-31; Isaiah 58:6-7; Luke 4:16-21; Matt. 5-7; 13; 25:31-46; Rev. 21-22)
5. Reproducible-Adaptable Approaches - All living systems require some form or structure. We believe in simple reproducible forms rather than static institutionalized structures that inhibit growth, multiplication, and expansion. We foster teams, collaboration and networking, not heavy handed leadership seeking control through unnecessary hierarchies and bureaucracies. We try to remind ourselves that healthy Christology drives Mission and Mission drives our Ecclesiology. We strive to use adaptable forms and systems that facilitate mission, growth, replication, and expansion. (Matt. 4:19;13:31-13; 28:19-20; I Thes.1:6-10; Eph. 4:11-12; Phil. 4:9; I Tim. 4:12; 2 Tim. 2:2; Acts 13:1-4;19:8-10;20:17-35; Mark 10:35-45)
We try to prayerfully live our values while partnering with God’s Holy Spirit so that lives, neighborhoods, and cities are transformed through multiplying churches of gospel-centered disciples of Jesus.
1We are excited about our values and believe they have been shaped by God’s Spirit, Scripture, and experience . We are particularly thankful for leaders and writers who have helped us such as: Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways; Darrell Guder, The Missional Church; Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church; Bob Logan and Neil Cole, Beyond Church Planting; Bay Area Community Church.
BELIEFS
God has revealed the good news in Jesus through his unfolding ”big story” in Scripture (Luke 24:25-27; Hebrews 1:1-3). This overarching narrative may be summarized as CREATION, FALL, REDEMPTION and CONSUMATION. We desire to glorify God as we live our stories within his grand story as gospel-centered disciples who seek to daily live “Jesus is Lord.” As we do this, we stand together with believers down through the centuries who loved God and confessed the faith set forth in the historic creeds of orthodox Christianity such as the Apostles’ Creed. (a full doctrinal statement is available on request). We also stand united today with God’s global church.
APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic* church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
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*universal
(Modern English Version: From the English Language Liturgical Commission, 1988.)
GLOBAL CHURCH
We not only align with the orthodox beliefs of the historic church, we also affirm our unity with the global church’s Lausanne Movement. The Lausanne Covenant and the Manilla Manifesto was affirmed by a large gathering of global Christian leaders from some 150 countries and we affirm this as well. The Lausanne Covenant and the Manilla Manifesto can be read at http://www.lausanne.org/about/statement-of-faith.html
Why all this concern about gospel-centered doctrine? Jesus’ disciples who wrote Scripture exhort us to be faithful to proclaim, practice, and protect sound doctrine with the help of the Holy Spirit (I Timothy 6:20-21; 2 Timothy 1:13-14; 2:14-15; 4:1-4; Titus 1:9; 2:1; I John 4:1-6; Jude 3). Every generation needs to do this given their culture’s unique challenges. We believe a healthy missional church planting movement will keep their belief as simple as “Jesus is Lord,” while contextualizing the good news in Jesus in the grand story of God and teaching sound doctrine. It is foolish to do this as an island. We stand gratefully with believers who have gone before us and those who live for Jesus in other cultures as well!
