We believe that God wants us to be…

1. Biblical

We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

We want our beliefs, our structures, our priorities and our methods to be Biblical. We want our members to be striving to live in obedience to the Bible. This is foundational for us, and something we cannot and will not compromise.

2. Worshippers

By worship, we mean more than just music; our whole lives should be an act of worship to God. God is the focus of our worship, not us.

3. Prayerful

Prayer is fundamental and core to who we see ourselves as. We believe prayer is foundational to the health and advancement of the Kingdom of God through our church.

4. A Family and a Team

Four of our core values are covered under this heading. They are:

  • Fellowship – enjoying and helping one another
  • Family – the foundation for our church and the nation
  • A caring church – actively caring for each other
  • People – everyone is important and matters to God and us

We want to develop a whole atmosphere of encouragement, warmth and nurture.

5. Supernaturally Empowered Through Use of Spiritual Gifts

A church is not just a club. We believe that church provides for us to be effective through His Holy Spirit.

Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

6.  A Church on a Mission (Purposeful)

What is our purpose? Where are we going? These are key questions.

We have a purpose statement as a church: “To follow Jesus.”

Every church must have a focus based on biblical principles. The two scriptures upon which we choose to build our church are:

  • the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-39)
  • the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20)

First Church has always had a focus of sending people into the mission field, a priority that has to do both with our immediate environment as well as including ministry overseas. We are an apostolic church by practice, which means that we believe every disciple needs to understand that they are ‘sent out’ to fulfill God’s purposes. (For a long time our slogan was ‘teach, train, equip and send out.’) We each are called to follow Jesus in fulfilling His mission.

7.  Growing

We want each person to grow toward maturity in their faith – a life long journey! What we are looking for is growth in:

  • Knowledge (learning more from Bible study, from experience, from other people)
  • Character (who we are, Holy Spirit transformation so we exhibit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control)
  • Skills (how to pray, how to lead a group, how to resist temptation, how to pray for someone, how to share the good news of Jesus, how to handle money, parenting, relationships)

Another way of looking at this is that we want to see growth in head (knowledge), heart (character) and hands (skills).

We also want to see growth as a community – we want new people to join us on our journey of following Jesus.

8. Witnesses to the Gospel

We want to be visible in the community, effectively meeting real needs, loving and accepting people; all the while faithfully sharing the truth that God loves us, and and has come to save us and the world from the brokenness that caused by sin. There really is hope is Jesus! Both now… but especially in the age to come.