CORE VALUES
Who a person or organization is, at the core, is what dominates their thoughts, determines their actions, and dictates their outcome. We may try to be something we aren’t or we may try to hide the “real” us, but eventually the truth of our core is always exposed.
At Journey of Faith, our Core Values consists of these six (6) elements and they drive our very lives. We are God honoring, Bible-devoted Jesus followers who are spiritually growing, service focused disciple makers.
Jesus was once asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” He responded, “Love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” (Matthew 22:36-40) Worshipping God seems like an obvious answer, but Jesus clearly points out that not all who claim to know God actually worship God. (Mark 7:6)
At Journey of Faith, worshipping God is accepting the reality that our worship is a life we live, not an event we attend. Each day we put on display, for all to see, what or who we truly worship through our choices, our words, and our actions. Journey of Faith seeks to honor God, by placing him first and relinquishing our dreams, our goals, and our ambitions to worship and honor him. Through this act of worship, we choose to die to ourselves in order to follow Christ. (Luke 9:23).
Throughout the New Testament, references to “church” were never about buildings but always about a group of people. We learn in Acts that the church (the people) possessed an insatiable appetite to meet together every day. (Acts 2:42-47)
The early church loved one another, served one another, prayed for one another, discipled one another, held one another accountable, and met each other’s needs. The church grew closer to each other, out of a deeper love for Christ and each other than to their own families (Matthew 12:46; Luke 14:26) It is this unexplainable love that Jesus identified as the “one thing” that proves we are His disciples (John 13:35) and proves to the world God sent him. (John 17:20-23) This is what it means to be a connected follower of Jesus.
We seek to reflect that kind of love, service, and devotion to each other and to God. We want our love and sacrifices to serve as the evidence necessary for people far from God to reconnect with God.
God chose to give us the Bible in order to teach us how He expects us, as His followers, to live. (2 Timothy 3:16) It is God’s primary tool to shape our thinking, grow our knowledge, and develop us as Christ-followers; therefore, we must be students of the Bible.
What does that mean? We read it, yes. But, it is simply not enough to sit down and read the Bible.
We must understand the context, understand the author’s meaning, and understand what God is communicating. That doesn’t happen by just casually reading the Bible. It takes work, requires personal effort, and at times sacrifice to ensure we understand not what the reading means to us, but what God meant by those words we read.
We expect to see an infant in diapers, being carried wherever he or she goes, and being fed by mom or dad at meal time. We would think nothing about that sight because that is natural. Now, what would you think if you saw a healthy 30-something individual being fed or being led away to change their diaper? Ridiculous, right? Why? It’s unnatural.
God looks at us the same way. His intent is to transform us into the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Our desire is for God to successfully transform us into the likeness of Christ, knowing that it requires our involvement. The reason is simple: we are more productive for God while living on this earth and are welcomed with a grand entrance into heaven for eternity. (2 Peter 1:5-11)
We are all aware that our society has become a culture of consumers. We have become takers rather than givers. Sadly, this reality has made its way into today’s church.
The Bible makes Jesus’ mission crystal clear: serve others. (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; John 13:1-7).
If we are to fulfill God’s goal of transforming us into Jesus’ image, then serving others is part of that plan. Sometimes, as Jesus revealed, serving others requires sacrifice on the server’s part.
As a family, we want to use whatever gift God has given us to serve each other. (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) We want to help each other grow and mature as followers of Jesus; we want to grow as a loving family.
Information without application, is nothing more than trivia. When it comes to following Christ, applying His instructions is far more essential than in simply knowing His instructions.
We want to be obedient to Jesus’ farewell command to make disciples. (Matthew 28:18-20) Jesus was clear in His expectations and wants to use us to fulfill His heart’s desire: seeing people spend eternity with Himself, not condemned to eternal death. (2 Peter 3:9)
As a result, we want to disciple one-another, becoming equipped to share Jesus’ love story with our family, friends, neighbor’s, and co-workers. Then, as others commit their lives to Jesus, we want to enable them to walk together along a journey of faith growing more and more like Christ.