In More Depth about our Core Values…
Vision of what we are to be – a church with priorities of UP , IN ,and OUT. We see these values modelled in Jesus’ life, for example we consider Luke 6:v12-26, where Jesus upward relationship (prayer overnight,v12)); Jesus’ inward relationship (disciples called in order to be formed and a new community exists, v13-17)), Jesus outward relationship – his ministry and teaching takes place in a hurting world, (vv18-26). As we model our lives on Jesus we want, individually, to have a balance of UP, IN, OUT. As a community of Christians, we want actively, deliberately, to have these priorities of Up, IN, Out as our core business, as our DNA, as the ‘genes’ of our church.
UP! (Worship and Prayer)
*We worship a mighty yet gracious, forgiving, compassionate and holy God (Exodus 34:5-10). Our Anglican worship is to be God honouring. Yet we also meet in his name and he is present among us by his Spirit. Our worship is to be expectant – of the Lord speaking, of healing, of gifts being given, of the Lord ministering to us and to others. We come to worship expectant and desiring to encounter God as we declare “the Lord is here… “and all say “his Spirit is with us” in Holy Communion.
*Our personal worship we express in different ways and we embrace that diversity.
*At All Saints our worship will follow a liturgical shape, embrace the diversity of Anglican liturgy, be Eucharistic centred, and reflect traditional and modern styles and music.
* Jesus invites us to bring prayer (John 14:v13-14). We desire to have a deep prayer life as a Church community. There will be regular opportunities – on a Sunday or during the week – and quarterly prayer concerts or other focused times of intercession. And on our Sundays we will be praying regularly for persecuted Christians, for the needs of our church and for our city where we live and work. As Dutch Christian writer Corrie Ten Boom asked: is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire? Here at All Saints, we want it to be our steering wheel, for us a church community.
IN (Deep Community and Discipleship): John 15 points to not only a deep life of prayer and worship with Jesus (‘abide with me’), not only to life of witnessing to God in the world (‘you also must testify’), but also to a deep community life (‘love each other as I have loved you’) where we love each other sacrificially. Yet Church is to be more than a deep loving community, Jesus seeks very fruitful disciples (‘This is to my Father’s Glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples) – it is clear when Jesus teaches, his vision and desire is for lifelong discipleship, for example, he prepares them for the difficult times that will be ahead through discrimination and persecution. All this is to be done in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, (‘when the Counsellor comes.’)
How to help put this at our core…
- A strong system of home groups to be established in addition to existing ones
- teenage work to be established, beginning first with our younger teenagers.
- prayer ministry to be offered, initially one Sunday a month, and to grow this ministry until it is available every Sunday.
- To be a Welcoming church – welcoming new people before a service, during a service, after a service, and inviting them into our friendship circles and existing involvements. No one to be left behind on the fringes, no one excluded. This includes speaking English as often as possible as many visitors are likely to be primarily English speakers as we connect more and more with the internationals in our city.
In = Deep Community and Life Long Discipleship all in the presence and power of the Spirit.
OUT (Service and Evangelism)– Jesus said: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself, (Matthew 23:v34-40, Luke 10v25-28). When we consider Luke 10 and Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus has in mind not only serving fellow believers, but all whom life can bring us into contact with – and helping meet their needs as is possible for us to do. OUT means service of others (whether Christian or not, whether Dutch or not). But Jesus also commissioned his followers – go and make disciples, go and preach to all creation (Matt 28:v18 onwards and Mark 16:v15 onwards), a vision that all should know about who Jesus is, what he did and why he came and died. OUT means – Go and talk to others about Christ.
Much of this OUT is by our members in our personal life settings. But as a church what we will be doing:
OUT (service): assist financially from time to time the food bank in Amersfoort.
Seek to serve the refugees in Amersfoort, especially those in the AZC (Asielzoekerscentrum – Asylum Seeker Centre).
Out (Evangelism): we will run an Alpha Course – which is especially intended for those with questions about the Christians faith. This will be from May to July. This is a place to invite those we know who want to know more about who is Jesus and what it means to be a Christian. For more about Alpha: http://alpha.org/
OUT will have both a local and global vision – how can be serving and evangelising locally, but also how can we be serving and evangelising globally. We have a local setting as a church and we are also part of a global body of Christ.
This means, in coming year, seeking to introduce to All Saints, different international agencies whose work fits with our vision.
Also it means regularly – usually weekly – we will pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.
As in all aspects of Church life, we seek to do this open to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit – for as the first followers of Christ were sent out, in Acts 1, they were reminded of their need for the Spirit of God (Acts 1:1-8).
OUT (Service and Evangelism) in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.