Values of a Gospel Church
What Does a Gospel Church Value?
We believe a Gospel church—that is, a healthy evangelical, confessional, Reformational, complementarian, and baptistic church—will passionately value the following five things, both corporately as a church and individually as members and Christian believers.
Gospel Churches Value Transformation
Anyone who comes to Christ is fundamentally transformed. Our mission to reach the world with the Gospel is to be carried out in a manner that glorifies Christ, and so the Christian is commanded to remain unstained by sin while dealing with a sinful world. This transformation is both individual and corporate--we are one body in Christ. And just as the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” (1 Corinthians 12:21), so too the “parts” of our body, our members, are connected to and dependent upon one another. As transformed people, we have the privilege and responsibility from God to encourage, exhort, admonish, and correct one another as we strive to follow Jesus Christ and become more like him.
Gospel Churches Value Exaltation
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Congregational worship, then, isn’t about us. It’s about him. So worship, while heartfelt and passionate, must also be reverent and deliberate, governed by what God has revealed in his Word. Worship services should be centred on the expository preaching of the Bible. Church music ought to support and lift up congregational singing, rather than being a performance or to call attention to itself; the whole congregation is the true “worship team”! Songs need to chosen to obey the command of the Apostle, so that we are “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). And beyond our gathered services, we offer our entire lives as spiritual sacrifices, making much of Christ in everything we do.
A Gospel Church Values Proclamation
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). The public proclamation of God’s Word is no mere “pep talk.” Gospel churches hold the conviction that, in the words of Heinrich Bullinger, “the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God”—that is, when the sermon says what the text says, it’s God saying it, not merely the human preacher. As such, we are strongly committed to expositional preaching, preaching which unpacks, unfolds, explains, and applies the meaning of the text of Scripture, and mainly by working through whole books of the Bible passage by passage. Beyond preaching, Gospel churches “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26) by celebrating the Lord’s Supper publicly and in a worthy manner, examining ourselves as we come to the Supper. And the proclamation of the Gospel goes beyond worship services as members of Gospel churches practice evangelism, seeking to share their faith with anyone and everyone. This means that, for Christians, withdrawing from the world and secluding ourselves is not an option. Churches need to be engaged with the unbelieving world and those in it. While remaining distinct from the world in belief, lifestyle, and worldview, we must be accessible by and open to those who do not yet believe and strive to make our faith understandable to them.
A Gospel Church Values Multiplication
Christ has entrusted the only hope that this desperate world has—the Gospel—to the church, and has commanded his disciples to go and share it with others, making disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-19). It is through the church that God has chosen to make his wisdom known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places (Eph. 3:10), and it is the church that is a “pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). This work begins with evangelism but goes beyond winning mere converts; it means making disciples, baptizing and teaching them to obey Jesus and imitate him, and it means gathering those disciples into churches where each of them can use the gifts given him or her to “build up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). It means developing and appointing qualified leaders over churches to feed and protect the flocks and put them in order (Tit. 1:5). It means sending out workers to start new churches just as the church in Antioch sent off Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1-3). Gospel churches pursue individual and congregational multiplication.
A Gospel Church Values Cooperation
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus promised, “if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). The task of reaching our province is far too large for any one local church or ministry. Local churches are called to cooperate with other congregations to advance the Gospel, and to demonstrate warmth of affection and prayerful care for one another—even when there may be differences of interpretation or practice. The level of cooperation may vary depending on the amount of doctrinal and practical agreement, a matter that calls for prayerful wisdom and deliberate care, but it can take many forms, from denominational affiliation to informal sharing of preachers or resources.
