Vision:
We the Covenant Community of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, envision a community of believers committed to the glory of God, centered on the Gospel, changing our community by being doctrinally sound, missionally driven and culturally sensitive. This includes evangelism, disciple making, leadership training, and leadership reproduction, reproducing our church through church planting, through Great Commandment Love, Great Commission purpose, and Great Confession dependency.
What if we as a church could actually do what God has called us to do? What would that look like? What if we were faithful to God’s calling in our life as individuals and in the church, and God did great and miraculous things through us? What would that look like?
These are the questions we asked ourselves as we thought about vision. We desire a community – people who love each other, help each other, need each other and rely on each other. It’s not always pretty because relationships are messy, but we desire community.
We desire this community to be made up of believers who embody the gospel. We don’t just preach the gospel; we don’t just hand someone the gospel, but rather, as Paul put it, we carry around this treasure in jars of clay. Just as God put on flesh and bones and came to us in the form of a man as Jesus, so we are to put flesh and bones on the gospel and bring it to people who need the healing and wholeness it brings.
While the truth of the gospel never changes, the culture we live in is always changing, so we as the church must continually determine how to live out the unchanging gospel in our culture that is always changing. Because of this our methods will always be changing.
When God’s power meets our human efforts as a church to live in community and embody the gospel, we envision being able to greatly impact and change John Day by repairing brokenness, healing hurts and restoring relationships – reconciling people to God. Our desire is to change John Day, but it doesn’t stop there; we are called to love others, from our families, to our neighbors, to our town, to the ends of the earth.
2 Corinthians 4:4-10; 5:17-21; Ephesians 3:7-13
Core Values:
Truth: We believe that truth intersected with faith transforms us.
Truth exists wholly outside of us. Truth is sourced in the risen Messiah – Jesus who himself said that he is the way, the truth, and the life. With all the different claims of truth, it can be hard to discern what truth is and what it isn’t, but we have the Bible, which is our standard for truth. This truth never changes – and yet the truth is always changing us.
All through our lives, we are faced with the truth and challenged to believe it by faith, and as we do, we are transformed. At the crossroads of God’s truth and our faith is transformation, so we will proclaim truth and call for faith in that truth.
John 14:6; Romans 1:20; Ephesians 1:13-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; Hebrews 4:12
Worship: We believe that worship is our response to God expressed in many different ways.
As God reveals himself to us, we worship him by rightly reacting and responding to who he is. True worship reacts and responds regardless of circumstances and feeling. We live in a day and age when worship has been defined as a feeling you get that takes place during singing, but the reality is that worship takes all different shapes and sizes and styles – whatever we do that ascribes worth to God is worship.
We are beings who were created to worship. The question then isn’t whether or not we are worshipping; the question is who or what we are worshipping. Worship then is our choice to respond and react rightly to who God is – giving all glory to him and nothing else. Gathering together as a body and corporately ascribing worth to God carries great value as we join together and share each other’s burdens, laying them at the foot of the cross and worshipping with one heart.
John 4:21-24; Romans 12:1-2; Philippians 4:4-9; Hebrews 10:25
Missional Living: We believe that God designed the Church as the primary instrument for bringing the gospel to the world.
Believers living together with purposeful authentic lives. Experiencing struggles, sin, pain, suffering, frailty, brokenness, as well as joy, forgiveness, healing, hope, power and love, as we walk together. As long as we remain in this world we want to experience and express God’s love together. We want to live at a sacrificial level, so Cornerstone’s presence is a kingdom force in our community.
We live in a world that is in desperate need of the gospel. From our neighbors, to the people we work with, to the people halfway around the world; the hurt and broken lives our world is full of, need the healing and wholeness that the gospel brings. We come to people offering the same grace that God offered us through the gospel, so we will seek to extend grace to people so that they can come face to face with the truth that will transform their lives.
With Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, son of the living God, Jesus replied by saying that in this confession and dependence on Christ as Lord, he will build his church and nothing can stop it. The gospel was entrusted to the church and consequently, we are called to bring the gospel to our world – not just talk about it, but to live it. In bringing the gospel to the world, people will come face to face with the unchanging truth of the
gospel and be challenged to respond in faith.
The Church is God’s first, best and intended means to build his kingdom. To this end, we cannot rely on anyone else (including Para-church ministries) to do our work for us. Rather, we will leverage and use other resources available to serve the church in bringing the gospel to the world and reconciling people to God.
Jesus came to earth to seek and save what was lost. What was lost was a right relationship with the Father and Jesus provided that for us in his death and resurrection. This is the gospel.
Matthew 16:13-19; 28:18-20; Acts 1:8; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Family: We believe that family is God’s primary means for spiritual growth and development.
We are who we are because of our family. Broken, healthy or otherwise, our family shapes us into who we are. Because of this, we believe (and research affirms it) that parents are the biggest influence in their children’s lives and consequently their most influential mentors – good, bad or otherwise. The best way then to raise a child up into Christ-likeness is for the parents to be the primary disciplers of their kids. To that end, good parenting is of great importance to us.
The Bible also tells us that good marriages are a picture of Christ and the church to the world, so healthy marriages are also of great importance to us. Divorce, broken families and stepfamilies are a very present reality in our culture, so meeting families where they are and helping them will be very important as we seek to live this value out.
Psalm 127; Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 5:22-6:4; Colossians 3:18-21
Relational Community: We believe that an interdependent community of believers, who are in relationship with God and united in Christ, is the environment for becoming spiritually mature.
The relational and interdependent nature of the Trinity is our example for community – each member is in perfect relationship with the others. We, as humans, are created in God’s image and therefore, we are relational beings; so for us, relationships are everything – relationship with God and with each other. Living in relationship with other imperfect and broken people can be hard, so living in relationships of grace and environments of truth are of great importance in our church.
Because of sin, we are broken, hurting and imperfect people who need each other. To help with this, God gave each of us spiritual gifts that we are to use to serve and encourage each other to bring glory to God and to build up the body.
We are a diverse, multifaceted people. We have many differences, and as easy as it can be to divide over our differences, we unite around the cross of Christ.
The Bible tells us that when people in the church are dependent on each other and united in Christ, we all grow up into maturity and the fullness of Christ.
Relational community finds its expression in our gathering to worship, fellowship and hearing from the Word. It ultimately finds its expression in small groups where the real relationships take place as people depend on each other and grow together, seeking to live out the values of the church together.
Acts 2:42-47; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13:13; Ephesians 4:11-16; Hebrews 10:24-25
Leadership Multiplication: We believe that spiritually healthy disciples at every level will reproduce.
When Jesus started his ministry on earth, his first and most important task was to find people who could learn from him, and essentially do what he did. He called the disciples, walked with them for 3 years, equipped them and then released his ministry to them to start the church – and they did it. We are a product of the men that Jesus equipped and released. Through the great commission, we are called to do the same – to make disciples…who make disciples…who make disciples…etc.
Spiritually healthy people should produce other spiritually healthy people. Leaders should produce leaders; disciples should produce disciples; small group leaders should produce small group leaders; churches should produce churches, etc.
The future of our church depends on how we live out this value.
Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 3:13-15; John 20:21; Acts 6:1-7; 1 Corinthians 11:1
Mission:
Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, desires to worship God… by living in community... by loving people... and seeing lives transformed, by the Gospel of Jesus, to live for Jesus.
We, as a church, are called to fulfill the great commandment (love God, love others) and great commission (make disciples) in great confession dependency (Peter’s confession of Christ). This is what we are to be about as a church. Because of this, we believe that someone who embodies the gospel (our vision) and lives out our values will be a mature disciple of Christ.
This plays itself out as we determine how to make mature disciples, working to meet people where they are, and help them along in their spiritual journey to become a mature disciple.
Church is best lived out in community. The values are best lived out in community. Community is best lived out in small groups. I believe that as we live out these values in community, we will embody the gospel to our culture.
Above all, we are to ascribe glory to God in all that we do. Anything good that happens in our lives and from our work is all due to God’s miraculous work in our lives, in our church, in our town, and in our world.
Matthew 16:13-19; 22:34-40; 28:18-20; 1 Corinthians 10:31