We are committed to being,
Gospel-Centered: We believe that the Gospel should be central to everything that we say and do as a local community of disciples (church). We seek to teach the Scriptures as the whole counsel of God. The method we use in *general to accomplish this expositional preaching. We use the Gospel of Jesus as the central purpose for all the Scriptures, and then interpret them according to it.
* We may choose to teach on specific subjects at times for the purpose of discipleship, in order to help our members know a subject more fully. But topical preaching will not be our general practice.
Community-Oriented: We believe that all Christians are called to live in and submit to a local community of disciples known in the New Covenant Scriptures as a church. We believe the Church is where a believer should build their most intimate relationships, gain guidance and wisdom for life decisions, and be held accountable to walk in the truth as it is revealed in sacred Scripture.
Disciple-making: We believe that it is essential for every one of our members to be engaged in discipleship. Teaching the way of Jesus is our first task as a body. We believe the Nicene Creed encapsulates in a succinct way the first things a disciple should know. We believe the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) encapsulates in a succinct way the characteristics we should seek to nurture in our hearts. And we believe the timeless practices laid out in Matthew 6 and Isaiah 58 (giving, prayer, fasting, serving the poor, and Sabbath) should give shape to our lives as worshipers of God under the Gospel.
Multigenerational: We believe that one generation will declare the Lord’s goodness to the next, and we wonder how that can happen if the generations are divided into various fragmented groups all the time. As a principle, we have chosen to resist the fragmentation so prevalent in the world’s system, and have chosen rather to willingly take the more difficult path of wholistic community. Which means we include our children with us in our Community Worship, and encourage families to serve together in incarnational ministry if possible. That does not mean we will not choose times and seasons where we teach to a specific demographic. It just means as a principle, we choose to not erect permanent, internal, age segmented ministries to accomplish the goal of discipleship.
HistoricallyRooted: We find great value in the witness of the Church of the past. Since we are one with them in Jesus by the Spirit we wish to remain connected to that great cloud of witnesses. Therefore, we choose to make frequent use of the best hymns, creeds, confessions, and catechisms as a part of our worship liturgy. Yet, we believe that, “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13:52 ESV) Therefore we do not confine ourselves to the old only, instead we choose to value it alongside the best traditions of our generation as well.
Incarnational Ministry: We believe that the Church, as individuals, and therefore as a body, is called to engage in good works. We believe that Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46 explicitly tells the church, and all of mankind, what these good works are in *general to consist of. Therefore we will seek to build new and/or establish strategic partnerships with ministries that aid the poor (widows, orphans, and refugees) in the communities where we are located.
Church Planting: Our goal is to build intimate communities of disciples that are to remain relatively small (125-250 persons). Our goal is not to see how many people we can get into one worship gathering. We explicitly reject that model of ministry and the metrics that come with it. Our goal is to reach, disciple, and send as many disciples as the Lord will entrust to us, into church planting and incarnational ministry in Nashville, the U.S., and the world.