Who We Are

Let's start with our vision. Vision is what drives a church, what gives it direction. Our vision as a church is "impacting the world for Jesus Christ as a vibrant, diverse family of faith."

It will help to break our vision down. First is "impact." Impact is making a difference, influencing, changing. We want to do all this for Christ, because of Christ. Impact comes as we share the Good News of Christ with others.

We are attempting to do this as a church - making an impact locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

"Vibrant" means a healthy and growing church. We want to be, and are, both.

"Diverse" means multi-ethnic and cross-generational. Although we are primarily made up of white anglos, there is a blend and mosiac of many other ethnic groups represented in our church. It is one of the first things people notice when they attend the Contemporary Service . We are cross-generational in the sense that there is balance of all age groups in our church. We are not a youth church, or a "boomer" church, or a senior adult church. From birth to people in their 70s and 80s attend here.

Next is our mission statement. It's about being purpose driven. We strive for balance in evangelism, discipleship, worship, ministry, and fellowship.

We have lots of values as a church. Here are some of them:

Bible study in small groups. This takes place mainly in our Sunday morning groups and classes that meet at 10:10.

Prayer. We have prayer groups, an mail prayer chain, a phone prayer chain, a specific prayer focuses during the year. 

Application of the Scripture. Most, if not all, of Pastor Stan's messages, contain a survey of the bibical text along with practical personal and corporate application.

People. That's why we are here. People need a relationship with Christ. People need to be in community with other followers of Christ.

Missions. Our heartbeat. We do missions, we pray for missionaries, we go on mission trips, we give to missions, we give up our friends to the mission fields, we educate our children about missions, we call out the called for missions.

Unity. We strive and work toward living in unity with each other.

Ministry. Every Christian has a spiritual gift. Every believer should be actively involved in at least one ministry.

Church. We are the body of Christ. Every follower of Christ is to be attached to the body, a local expression of the body of Christ. There is lots more. In fact we have a regular course where Pastor Stan goes on and on about our church :) It's called "Southtown 101." It's a three session course that explores some of the very things above. Look for the next one coming up.