Our Vision after 25 years:
A passion for God in Jesus Christ demonstrated in
our worship, our love for one another, and our compassion for His WORLD,
fueled by the Gospel, and fired by the Holy
Spirit.
10/10/03
A. WORSHIP
1. What we see at CPC
1. A body of
believers captivated by the supreme value of Christ, glorying only in the cross
of Christ, by which we are crucified to the world and the world to us.
2. Corporate worship
services that are alive with a singular, Spirit-breathed passion for God,
bearing witness to his greatness in the way we approach Him.
3. We come together
to exult and delight in Christ, in Lord’s day worship that is a natural
extension of the daily living sacrifice we offer. A time of refreshment celebrating the work of
God in our lives, strengthening our faith, and challenging us to an
ever-deepening dependence on the grace of God.
4. Private and family
worship taking place day to day, flowing from and preparing for our weekly
corporate celebrations of praise to God.
5. An excited and committed group of servants who joyfully use
God’s gifts to serve the body in support of corporate worship, displaying
Christ’s value in their approach and execution of this ministry.
2. How to get there
1. By preaching that is
worship, that enables us to see the triune God revealed in all his glory, that
communicates the whole counsel of God, reveals His infinite value, and that increases
our faith by grace.
1. What we see:
a. A Reformed church of families and individuals
that welcomes people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds. A diverse congregation experiencing the
overflow of the grace of God in
our hearts and through that overflow of grace meeting the needs of those around
us. A community of saints exercising
their gifts to build up one another, speaking the truth in love, being used by
God to draw the lost around us whom He is calling to new life in Jesus.
b. Families growing together in their love for
Christ, as God turns the hearts of children to their parents and parents to their
children through the teaching of the Word and the modeling of the
self-sacrificing love that is the fragrant aroma of Christ. Covenant children growing to attain and
profess full maturity in Christ.
c. A
congregation that applies the one another commands throughout the New Testament
in communities of 8-18 people and embraces the call to powerful fellowship, to
use their gifts in ministry with each other, and to encourage one another to
share their hope in the gospel with those around them who don’t yet possess that
hope.
d.
A body manifesting the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, marked
by an ever-increasing love for one another.
A community living out of the love of Christ with a tenderheartedness
and kindness that transcends all social, cultural and racial barriers through
the power of the gospel.
2. How to
get there:
a. By equipping and supporting the heads of the
home so that husband-fathers are shepherding their families. By God’s grace they accept their God-appointed
headship and sacrificially love their wives and children, to present them
mature in Christ.
b. By
equipping the heads of single parent families to
lead and shepherd their families. We
also recognize the difficulty of this task as a single parent and endeavor to
support these parents as they sacrificially love their children and work to
present them mature in Christ.
c. By encouraging individuals to be connected to
the body, active in ministry, service and fellowship.
d. By providing family-based youth ministry, with
family ministries that are consonant with and supportive of this approach to
raising covenant children.
e. By
encouraging members and friends to experience the community of intimate
fellowship found in regularly attending a cell.
f. By endeavoring to improve communication and
cooperation between each elder and cell and small group leaders as they respond
to the needs of the families they are serving in their ministries.
g. By celebrating, as a congregation, Christ’s
glory in evangelism and conversion of the lost, as new believers are
assimilated into our Body.
h. By developing and implementing strategies that
improve congregational outreach to unbelievers both individually and through
our cells and small groups.
i. By building a facility that will provide more
classrooms, to be used during the Middle Hour for training adults and children in
Christian living.
C. HIS WORLD
1. What
we see at CPC:
A congregation so focused on our
relationship with God that He controls our very being…our thoughts, words and
deeds. We are by His grace and command
adapting ourselves to the Great Commission so that it controls our thinking and
shapes how we live. We are expectant and
unashamed of the Gospel because God has demonstrated to us that it IS the Power
of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
Jesus sends us to proclaim His Gospel to a world filled with people who
are facing God’s wrath and righteous judgment upon their sin, and who need the
redemption Jesus accomplished in His life, death and resurrection. Jesus is our savior, and He is our example of
bringing the wonder of the Gospel to the lost around us. He opens our eyes to see the desperate need
of those around us who are yet cut off from Him. Then He leads us to proclaim His glorious
promise of salvation for those who come to faith in Him. Our changed lives give witness to the
transforming power of the Gospel as we serve others in need and as we speak the
truth in love. In every circumstance
where God puts us, we are salt (the preserving influence) and light (pointing
to the finished work of Jesus Christ) to the glory of God.
So we see
ourselves loving and intriguing those around us with an energy and freedom that
joy produces, even in very imperfect, but grace filled lives of kindness (I Thess.
3:12; 5:15 “everyone else”)
a) Locally:
all kinds of people regularly coming to Christ thru individual witness and
various CPC ministries as God grants us increase. We know that every tribe,
tongue, and people will be represented in heaven (Revelation 7:9) and in our
culture today, many different people groups are living among us in
b) Globally:
more CPC people going on short term mission trips and some becoming career
missionaries.
a) Locally:
i. By preaching, teaching, and mentoring CPC
members in how to live out of the power of the gospel and equipping them
through classes to reach out to offer that hope to the lost around them.
ii. By continuing to offer our Gospel discussion
class for several weeks following each Easter Sunday.
iii. By preparing for the people we believe that
God will indeed be bringing to faith in Christ by expanding the space for
people to worship and learn by building our sanctuary and additional
classrooms.
iv. By providing a training program to equip
coaches for Upward in evangelizing and in discipling their team members this
season.
v. By looking into evangelistic tools we can use
to enhance our outreach. As we find
tools that will strengthen our outreach we will employ them.
b) Globally:
i. By keeping a global mission focus for our
people by encouraging cells and small groups to adopt the foreign missionaries
in our budget to care for them and to support their ministry.
ii. By strategically considering short term mission
opportunities and recruit the participants for those trips, and provide more
financial assistance for those who go on those short term missions.
iii. By periodic visits from CPC members and
leaders to full time foreign missionaries abroad both to support their ministry
using our gifts and talents, and also to keep that ministry in focus before the
congregation.
iv. By
the World Missions Task Force continuing our February Month of Missions.
A. The FUEL of the GOSPEL
1. What
we see
A congregation growing in grace and in
the knowledge of Christ, understanding the Gospel and how to live out of it in
deepening repentance and faith, so we are more eager to worship our God, more
willing to follow Jesus and take risks for Him, and more excited about sharing
the gospel with the expectation that we will see lives changed by its power
(Rom 1:16-17).
The mysteries of possessing Christ’s
righteousness, the resurrection life, the privilege of sonship, and the
indwelling power of the Holy Spirit more comprehended in our hearts.
2. How to
get there
d. By discipling and counseling ministries that,
by God’s grace, apply the radical truth of Scripture through which God heals
our brokenness and gives us the joy of our salvation (e.g. discipling couples
and individuals through Sonship, Gospel Transformations, Person of Jesus,
Redeemer, and other such materials).
B. FIRED by the HOLY SPIRIT
1. What we
see
The NT Church spontaneously witnessed
wherever it went so, for example, Paul could say to the Thessalonians, “Your faith in God has been known everywhere!”
(I Thess. 1:8). Little reference is made
to the Great Commission, and there is no sense of being compelled simply by
duty. Rather, evangelism seemed to be
the response of a healthy organism to the law of its being. “For we cannot help speaking about what we
have seen and heard” (Acts
We see a recovery of this adapting
ourselves to the Great Commission because God’s Spirit has IGNITED the Gospel
in our hearts so that we seek
opportunities to share Christ with those who are lost.
We see regular testimonies: at the Lord’s
Supper, on Sunday mornings, of people who have recently found Christ either through
interaction with the saints at CPC who so behold and are transformed by the
beauty of Christ that they are used by God to bring many sons and daughters to
glory as they go about their daily lives, or through the ministries of CPC. We see such testimonies making all of us
bolder and more expectant that the Spirit IS at work in our midst.
Seeing our own lives changed by the
Spirit’s releasing us from bondage to our idols, giving us new joy, and setting
the Gospel afire in our own hearts.
2. How to get there
a. The Holy Spirit ministers to us through the Word
of Christ, producing faith that leads to a God-glorifying obedience and the
fruitful use of our spiritual gifts. We
will endeavor to take part in this by modeling, encouraging and supporting
regular public, family and private reading of the Word, systematic and regular
Scripture memorization, and the training of covenant children through
scripture-based catechism programs.
b. By focusing on prayer in all aspects of our
ministries thereby recognizing and delighting in our dependence upon God. One opportunity for such a focus on prayer is
to conduct a Sunday afternoon “Prayer Walk” in neighborhoods of our cells and
small groups this fall.