A Deeper Look

at the Vision of

Community Presbyterian Church

Our vision statement defines how we will carry out our purpose and mission here at Community Presbyterian Church. We believe that a clearly defined vision statement places all members of our church body on the same page in our understanding of why we’re here and what we’re trying to accomplish.

When we say “the Gospel,” what do we mean?

We are simultaneously far more sinful than we ever dared imagine, yet far more loved and accepted than we ever dared hope for. The Gospel declares that we as sinners, deserving eternal condemnation, have received God’s gracious gift of eternal life through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Gospel is about what Christ accomplished for us on the cross. He died a gruesome death to pay the penalty for our sins so that we would stand completely forgiven before God; He also imputed or credited to our account the perfect obedience He accomplished during His sinless life so that we would stand completely righteous before God. The Gospel declares that we are righteous, yet it is not a righteousness that we have earned. It is that which Christ has earned, accomplished, and granted to us.

What do we mean when we say we will “proclaim the Gospel”?

It means that we will do more than just acknowledge the truth of the Gospel. That’s not difficult—we’ve been doing that since we became Christians. On a daily basis we have a difficult time actually believing, trusting, and embracing the Gospel. Why do we say that? Because in practical terms we often live every day as an orphan, as if we didn’t have a Heavenly Father, rather than as a child of God who enjoys His love and favor earned for us through the finished work of Christ. Therefore, our need is to every day, even several times a day, actually proclaim or preach the message of the Gospel to ourselves and to others. To proclaim the Gospel means that we will constantly think about it, talk about it, refer to it, write about it, base our teaching on it, mention it, declare it, and do any other thing possible to have it at the forefront of everything we do here at Community.

What will it look like in the heart and home and to the hopeless as we proclaim the Gospel?

We would delight in Christ in our hearts. We instinctively know what it means to delight in something. From our early childhood days of delighting in an ice cream cone, a fresh snowfall, or a favorite toy, we know what it means to have our hearts totally enamored with something outside ourselves. The person who honestly proclaims the Gospel to the heart will assuredly find their true delight and satisfaction in Christ. Another guaranteed result is that the person will begin to repent of wasting so much time seeking satisfaction in things other than Christ. Repentance obviously deals with where we have fallen short, but much of our repentance will focus on the supposedly “good things” we have done that we subconsciously use as a self-righteous substitute for Christ. We understand that the root of everything man thinks, says, and does is the heart. Therefore, in order to experience any real change, we must address the heart. There are many behavioral techniques that can temporarily bring about compliance, but genuine movement toward Biblical obedience can only come about through the transformation of a person’s heart. Therefore, it is necessary to daily proclaim to our own hearts the truth of the Gospel—our sinfulness, need of repentance, forgiveness in Christ, belief in Christ’s triumph over sin and its reign in our lives, and the righteousness given by Christ.

We would depend on Christ in our homes. Our use of the term “homes” has two applications. The first refers to our biological family. Our vision calls us to take the Gospel truth to our spouse, our children, our parents, etc. In our families, this means we would deal with each other with grace. Each would recognize his or her own sin and not seek to blame and accuse others or defend self. Forgiveness, rather than condemnation, would characterize relationships. Our strength in relationships would not come from superior intellect or age or physical domination, but would come from our absolute dependence on Christ.

The second application is our church/spiritual family. Just because a person is a church member doesn’t mean they no longer need to hear about the Gospel matters of repentance and faith. In fact, church members often need to hear the Gospel more aggressively due to the numbing effect of years of exposure to church and religious activity. Believers often disconnect the process of sanctification from the event of justification. Sure, we theologically all believe that justification is by grace through faith, but we functionally believe that our works of obedience merit sanctification (or growth in Christ). We proclaim the Gospel in the church to one another by insuring that our sermons, class lessons, small group studies, and other such contexts are all faithful to promote the glorious truth that salvation, from start to finish, is all of God and by His grace. Again, our relationships in the church family would be dependent on Christ and His merit rather than our own superiority.

We would declare Christ to the hopeless. The hopeless are those who don’t know Christ. The Scripture speaks of the hopeless in Matthew 9 as being “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” We all know that a sheep without a shepherd is lost, hopeless, and condemned to die at the hands of a wild animal. A believer who truly remembers his or her own lost condition before knowing Christ and the utter horror of the consequences of sin and death he or she deserved will overflow with thanksgiving for God for saving him or her from that condemnation. This thanksgiving will naturally result in wanting to declare to others the grace found exclusively in Jesus Christ. As a believer continues to drink from the self-replenishing fountain of God’s grace, he or she will naturally want to lead others to this fountain where they, too, may drink unto eternal life. If you as a believer hold to any degree the thought that you somehow merited God’s favor in salvation, then you will simply expect the unbeliever to perform to the level that you did, thus taking care of his or her need of redemption. Yet the believer who is absolutely convinced that salvation (justification, sanctification, glorification) is all of God’s unmerited favor and grace will surely want to point others to the cross where salvation can be found. We proclaim the Gospel to the hopeless through evangelism, inviting people to worship and other church functions, conversations, visitation, counseling, etc.

As Community Presbyterian Church embraces this vision for ministry, it is our sincere hope and prayer that it would permeate all that we do—worship, discipleship, fellowship, children’s and youth ministry, missions, evangelism, church leadership—as we experience and share the life-changing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.