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Our Values

About Us

Introduction  

When you get to know us, you will quickly discover that like you, we are a congregation of imperfect people. However, we also hope that you will find us to be a group of believers who sincerely desire to please Him and to represent Him accurately and attractively to others.

 

This desire grows out of the mission we have embraced and it is governed by the authoritative message God has given His Word. You will find us to be a people who love the Bible and take it seriously and soberly each time we hear it preached.

 

This desire is also expressed by several core values that permeate our life and shape our worship as a congregation.

 

You will find that we are passionate about these values because they help orient and energize our lives personally and corporately. These core values express who we are as a church and what we desire God to enable us to display for His glory as a church.

 

We want God to enable us to be a God-exalting, Christ-centered, Word-driven, Gospel-focused, Spirit-empowered, Grace-enabled, and Others-oriented congregation of believers.  Whew!  A mouthful of descriptive terms, I know. But every one of them is an important component of what shapes us as a church. We hope they will shape your life and passions as well!

Core Value 1: God-exalting  

We want to be God-exalting in all we do as a church. You will sense this in the air when you come to worship on Sunday mornings. Church is about God, not us!  We live and worship before an audience of One!  And it isn’t me. Nor is it you. Welcome to the church that is not about you or me!  Welcome to the Church that is about God! 

Core Value 2: Christ-centered  

When we come together in worship, we come to God through Christ. God is glorified when His people exalt His Son by centering their praise and adoration on Christ. Our praise as a congregation celebrates who Christ is (His person) and what He has accomplished in redemption (His work). Our prayers are offered to the Father in Christ’s name. Our hearts are shaped and formed into Christ-likeness as we hear and respond to the preaching of God’s Word. Our resources are freely offered to build Christ’s body and to advance His name around the world. Everything we do as a congregation is centered on Jesus Christ – our Lord and Savior! 

Core Value 3: Word-driven  

The Living Word (Jesus Christ – John 1:1) is revealed in the written Word (Scripture – Hebrews 1:1-3). This means that exalting God by centering our lives and worship on Christ can only be accomplished through God’s Word. For this reason, the Bible governs all that we do and say in worship. Every part of our corporate worship on Sunday mornings is saturated with God’s Word. We sing the truths of Scripture. We pray the words of Scripture. We listen to the careful explanation and life application of Scripture. Everything rests on, revolves around, and is permeated with God’s Word. Christ told His Church to “speak the truth in love so that we could grow into Christ-likeness” (Ephesians 4:15). The way God intends for us to do this is for us to come together as a body to sing, pray, and hear God’s Word. We are richly blessed each time we do, and we hope you will be as well! 

Core Value 4: Gospel-focused  

The Gospel is the simple, powerful, and profound message by which God offers sinful people eternal life!  It is simple because it is offered to anyone who will repent of his/her sins and place faith and trust in the work Jesus accomplished for them on the Cross (Acts 2:38, 3:19; 17:30). It is powerful because it accomplishes a salvation from God’s wrath that no human effort or work could ever accomplish (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5). It is profound because in every way it originates with God, the offended party and not man, the guilty party (2 Corinthians 4:3-6; 2 Peter 3:9). Left to our own devices, we would never seek God (Romans 3:11). God, on the other hand, was pleased to send His Son to seek and to save lost sinners (Luke 19:10). God has made salvation freely available to all men who will believe on His Son (John 3:16). That Son, Jesus Christ, commanded His followers to take that offer to the entire world (Matthew 28:18-20). As a church, we want to make His last command our first concern!  We want to go wherever the gospel isn’t with the message that Salvation is only of the Lord (Jonah 2:9; Daniel 9:9). 

Core Value 5: Spirit-empowered  

Jesus told His followers, “Without Me, you can do nothing.”  He went on to explain that after His return to His Father in Heaven, He would send a Comforter to be with them in His absence. That Comforter is the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). The word “comforter” means to strengthen or encourage and it speaks of the empowerment that is available to each believer who orders His life according to what the Holy Spirit inspired in the written Word of God (Ephesians 5:15-21; Colossians 3:16-17; Galatians 5:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21). By God’s grace, we desire to be such a people for the Lord!  We want our words and deeds to please the indwelling Holy Spirit Who hears and sees our daily living (Ephesians 4:29-32). We desire to walk in obedience to His Word (Galatians 5:16). We desire to reflect His fruit as evidence of His presence in our lives (Galatians 5:22-25). In short, we want to glorify God in all that we do (1 Corinthians 10:31), and this requires that we submit to the Spirit’s instruction preserved and articulated in the Scripture (1 Thessalonians 5:19). 

Core Value 6: Grace-enabled  

Grace is undeserved favor from God that saves us from the penalty of our sins (2 Corinthians 8:9; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-9). But it is more. Much more!  Grace transforms our lives first by instructing us and then by enabling us to be more like Christ and less like the fallen world around us (Titus 2:11-15). Apart from God’s unmerited grace we would never be able to obtain forgiveness. Apart from God’s enabling grace we will never be able to live as forgiven people!  Grace permeates our life as a church, and we hope you will be richly blessed as you become part of a community of believers who are passionate about God’s grace!  We desperately need it daily!  We desire to be transformed by its teaching. We depend on its enablement to live daily as obedient followers of Christ!  And we want to extend that grace to you! 

Core Value 7: Others-oriented  

It is easy for believers to view the church selfishly. Let me explain what I mean. I am by nature a self-centered sinner in a world filled with other selfish sinners. Christ is not at all like this. He is selfless. He lived sacrificially for the glory of Someone else (God) and for the good of others (His church). I, on the other hand, am often profoundly selfish. I am not alone in my difficulty. All of us at Brookside share this predicament.

 

The way this shows up in the church part of our lives is in our tendency to look at church as a place where we go to get our spiritual needs met, our desires fulfilled, and our family relationships strengthened. In other words, we go to church primarily to get things we need or perceive we need for ourselves. While none of these things are inherently wrong goals, getting them was not why God put us in His Church. He put us there not to get but to serve. This means when we come to church, we need to intentionally divest ourselves of a “self-orientation” and cultivate an “others orientation.”  While we don’t always succeed, you will find a group of people at Brookside who are learning by God’s grace to live for others! 

 

We hope you will find this out personally when you come to visit! It isn’t about us – it is about God. And since you matter to God, you matter to us! We want to live for the glory of God and the good of others! We hope our life will touch your life in a way that draws you to the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!

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