Gospel-Centered
We believe the gospel of Jesus Christ is the central purpose of all Scripture and therefore should be central to all Christian discipleship. We teach the Scriptures as the whole counsel of God, with the gospel as the lens. In our public worship, our general method of teaching is expositional preaching.
Church-Oriented
We believe Christians are called to live in and submit to the shepherding of a local Church (Hebrews 10:24-25). The Church should be where Christians build their most intimate relationships, gain guidance and wisdom for life decisions, are held accountable to walk in the truth of Scripture, and participate in the work of ministry and the furtherance of the mission of Christ.
Disciple-Making
We believe that teaching the truth in Christ Jesus is the first task of the Church. We believe the Nicene Creed encapsulates the primary truths that all Christians should know and believe.
We believe the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) are the primary virtues Christians nurture in their hearts.
We teach five Timeless Practices: giving, prayer, fasting, serving the poor, and Sabbath (Matthew 6 and Isaiah 58) as means of grace that all Christians should practice as worshipers of God in the New Covenant.
Multigenerational
We believe our generation has the responsibility to declare the Lord’s goodness to the next one. We seek to resist generational fragmentation and instead willingly choose the more difficult path of multigenerational corporate worship.
Historically Rooted
We believe there is great value in the witness of the Church of the past. Since we are one with them in Christ by the Spirit, we wish to remain connected to that great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 11).
Therefore, we believe we should make frequent use of the best hymns, creeds, confessions, and catechisms as part of our worship liturgy.
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
Jesus and the Apostles explicitly tell the Church to remember the poor (Matthew 25:31-46). Therefore, as a core value, we will seek to establish and/or build strategic partnerships with nonprofit Christian service organizations that aid the poor, including widows, orphans, and refugees in the communities where we are located.
Church Planting
Our goal is to establish discipleship-oriented churches that will reproduce discipleship-oriented churches. We do not want to see how many people we can get into one worship gathering. We reject that model of ministry and the metrics that come with it. Our goal is to reach, disciple, and send disciples into church planting and incarnational ministry in the greater Nashville area, the U.S., and the world.