Finalized Antioch Community Church Core Values

Truth

We believe Jesus Christ is the supreme embodiment of Truth.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  All things find their ultimate meaning and purpose in Him.  We also believe the Bible is God’s written, authoritative, and completely true revelation to His creation.  We are passionate about being transformed by God as we grow in love, zeal, knowledge, and obedience to the truth He has revealed. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

Pursuing God

God is the center of everything we do.  We seek to glorify Him as we live out our lives as an expression of worship.  We acknowledge our complete dependence upon God and strive to be people of faith and prayer.  We pursue an active, growing, obedient, and abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 4:2; Ephesians 6:18-20; John 15:1-8)

Organic Community

God exists as a community of three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God’s people are called to live as a relational community expressing diversity within unity.  We strive to cultivate loving, authentic relationships that are centered in Jesus Christ.  Our goal is to be an active, healthy, growing, and life-giving organic community that reflects the reality of who Jesus is to the world around us. (John 13:34-35; John 17:20-23; Acts 2:42-47; Ephesians 4:1-3)

Creativity

We have been created in the image of God.  As followers of Jesus, we are part of God’s cosmic work of redemption and new creation.  We desire that our community be an expression of the creative work of redemption God is doing within and among us.  Our goal is to utilize the diverse gifts and abilities God has given us to creatively engage people and culture with the gospel. (Genesis 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 12; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Acts 17:16-34; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Holistic Mission

God is a missional, sending God.  As the Father sent the Son, we have been sent out into the world by Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Acknowledging we are hopeless apart from Christ, we desire to become “friends of sinners” as we guide lost and broken people to Jesus.  We believe in the power of the gospel to transform people, our city, and our world.  Therefore, we believe the gospel must be both tangibly demonstrated and courageously declared in our culture.(John 20:21; Luke 24:45-49; Acts 1:8; Matthew 9:9-13; Jeremiah 29:7; Matthew 5:13-16)

Intentional Multiplication

In obedience to Jesus’ mandate, we intentionally strive to make disciples of all people.   We are committed to developing and multiplying leaders.  We also desire to start new churches that start new churches.  Our goal is to help ignite a movement of the gospel in the Twin Cities and beyond that will contribute to the advancement of God’s Kingdom upon the earth. (Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:2; Ephesians 4:11-16; Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3)

 

Sound interesting? Inspiring? Encouraging? What do you think? 

Read Andy’s message about the Core Values here and find out more about Antioch Community Church here.

Planet Earth

I am loving on God’s creation lately.  Saturday night consisted of an amazing night filled with leftovers, brownies, banana bread (minus the middle…special baking by a certain boy), “Planet Earth”, friends, Target, and seat warmers.  We watched the Ocean and Desert episodes of Planet Earth.  The filming blew me away and I’m still in awe.  Now I just want to travel all over!  Who wants to come!?  Then, at church, the sermon started out with a comparison of the Sun and the Earth.  Incredible numbers and visuals. I  am astounded at how many earths would fit inside the sun–I’d tell you the exact numbers, but they’re too big for me to remember.  Go wikipedia them 🙂  Anyway, creation has so many neat things and I love it!  Probably why I love running, walking, hiking, biking, waterskiing, stargazing, meteor showers, sunsets, sunrises, and all those other outdoor activities.  Now if only the cold temperatures would go hide so that summer can come right in!

Sexually Charged Culture

I listened to a sermon entitled “Sexual Sin” by Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church, today from his “Religion Saves and Nine Other Misconceptions” series.  This series came out of the “Ask Anything” challenge.  Basically, people were allowed to write in answers and then vote for their favorites.  The top nine questions make up the sermon series.

Now that you have a little background…I’ll get to a few of the thoughts that stood out from the sermon I listened to tonight.

1. Don’t try to manage or tolerate or suppress your sin.  Put it to death!  Legitimizing, justifying, and judging sin hinders us.  Sin leads to death.  Sin separates us from God.  Jesus died so that we could put sin to death.  (See Colossians 3:5-8)

2. Driscoll suggested fasting from television, your ipod, the computer, the radio, ect. for a few days and then returning to see just how “sexually charged” our culture is.  For me, the hardest part would be the internet…I use it FAR too much.  I waste time looking at things that are really not worth it in the long run such as Steep and Cheap, REI, Facebook, and my e-mail for the hundredth time.   I’m pondering doing a variation of this challenge.  I’ll keep you posted.

3. Number 3 of “How to Resist Sexual Temptation” consisted of living as a new person with a new mind.  This included not viewing men or women as potential sexual partners but as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I think you could rephrase this to not seeing men or women as potential boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, cuddling buddies, friends with benefits, ect.  Personally, I’ve found myself with a little crush that turns into a downward cycle of temptation that does not honor that person as a brother in Christ but sees him rather as someone who I could date, kiss, cuddle, befriend ect.   I could add a lot of disclaimers to this and further the thought, but I think for now I’ll leave it at that.

4. Who or what do you worship other than God? Sex? Television? Sports? Relationships? Success? Money? Good looks? Weight? Books? Authors? Pets?
Worship the Creator not Creation

p.s. I’m impressed with my newfound skill of in-text links! 🙂

How far is the east from the west???

How often do we find ourselves fixating on our past sins?! I may even question…do we worship our sin? I find myself doing this FAR too often! I dwell on the sin. I let the sin define me. I find doing these things much easier than letting God define me, letting God forgive my sin and remove my transgressions as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103). God doesn’t want us to worship our sin! He desires for ALL of creation to worship and glorify Him (Psalm 148). Not only does He call on humans, but He calls on the sun, the moon, the mountains, and the animals among others to praise Him.

Furthermore, we are called to throw off everything that hinders us–including the sin that so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1). Instead, let us fill ourselves with God; let us keep all these wrong things (sin included) from coming to our minds. Let God define us, let God fill us. Let us set our mind on things above (Colossians 3:2).

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Other verses to ponder: James 5, Galatians 2:20, Hebrews 12, 1 John 1:8-10

– Some thoughts included are from the Hope Community Church sermon on February 27th, 2005 http://www.hopecc.com/sundays/sermons_archive.html