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PREVAILING HOPE
A New Vision For Hope Church
A Missional Church
What is God calling us to be and to do?
We believe that the church is a new community created and led by the Spirit of God to cooperate with mission of God to build a new world inhabited by a new humanity. We believe that he is calling us to be a Spirit-led community that both represents the redemptive reign of God that is yet to come and participating in the expansion of his reign that is already present.
In other words, we believe God is calling us to be an outpost of heaven and an instrument of kingdom expansion. The first aspect-representing the kingdom-requires community formation. Heaven is a world of love and joy and peace.... So, as an outpost of heaven, the church must be a reconciled diversity that is marked by those same qualities. [1]
The second aspect-participating in kingdom expansion-requires commission fulfillment. The Cumberland Valley, then, does not exist for the sake of Hope Church. Hope Church exists for the sake of the Cumberland Valley and the world. It is not the church, but the world, that is the horizon of God's redemptive activity.
This means it is our calling to bring the healing grace of the gospel, not merely into individual lives, but into the institutions and social structures of this Valley and the world.
This is what we mean by a missional church. God is on a mission to build a new world inhabited by a new humanity. It is our calling to cooperate with God's mission. So...
It is the mission of Hope Church to
engage people with the gospel of grace,
embrace them in a community of grace,
equip them to live by the power of grace,
so that together we may
exalt and enjoy the God of grace. [2]
[1] Acts 2; Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2
[2] Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 1:8 |
