What We Do

What are the 4 P’s?

Some churches talk about their mission and/or vision. Similarly, we talk about the 4 P’s:

  1. Purpose          What will we do?
  2. Process           How will we do it?
  3. Priorities       What do we value as we do it?
  4. Prayer             What will we see if we do it?

God has chosen to use the church, redeemed and ruled by Christ, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit, to accomplish His purpose on earth. God displays His glory through the church as the church proclaims the truth of the gospel so that others come to know God for who He is and what He has done to redeem them through Jesus Christ.

Before He ascended to heaven, the Lord gave His church its mission (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-49; John 20:21; Acts 1:8). We don’t get to decide that. As His disciples, we are commanded to make disciples of Jesus among all the people on earth. While Jesus gave us the general pattern to make disciples, He did not give us any specific methods to do it. Though the mission to make disciples never changes, the methods do.

The 4 P’s summarize a specific vision and strategy for us to effectively reach our community and make disciples in obedience to Christ’s command.

Our Purpose

This is also sometimes known as a mission statement. It answers questions like, “Why do we exist? What is our mission? What do we as a church want to be focused on doing specifically? What defines success and failure for us?”

We exist to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus who know, grow, and go.

At FCC, we want people to know Jesus in a personal relationship. Then we want them to grow in Him. As they grow, we want them to go for Him by living ministering and missional lives.

Our Process

We have designed a simple disciple-making process that corresponds to our purpose statement. This will ensure that we are focused on accomplishing our purpose and give us a way to evaluate whether we actually are accomplishing our purpose or not. Our process includes three steps.

Step 1: Know

The first step is to bring people into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In other words, we want people to experience salvation and begin following Jesus.

Step 2: Grow

As soon as people know Christ, we want them to begin growing in Him. We will strive to develop people into spiritually mature, equipped disciples of Jesus Christ who are

  • Committed to God
  • Connected to the Body
  • Competent in Word and Walk
  • Contributing to Kingdom Work
  • Commissioned to Reach the Unchurched
Head, Heart, and Hands

We want to see people grow in their head, heart, and hands—in knowledge, in devotion, and in obedience and service.

Groups to help us GROW

Sunday school classes, Men’s & Women’s Groups, youth group & Good News Club for kids are all available to help fulfill the Biblical mandate of discipleship. We know that true discipleship and rounded, balanced growth can only be accomplished in relationships with other Christians. We believe in this approach because it’s biblical (for example, it was the method of Jesus, of Paul, and the early church).  These groups provide a great format to develop people in three areas of life: their heart (personal spiritual walk), their head (Biblical knowledge), and their hands (obedience and service). They are also a great way to get people connected in relationships with others where they can mutually encourage and minister to one another. They also foster a level of trust and honesty for accountability. They lend themselves readily to practical demonstration and participation.

Step 3: Go

Going is all about service and leadership in the context of the church. We want people to take personal responsibility to disciple others, lead ministries, and be an active part of God’s global mission.

Our Priorities

These are values that will be the guiding principles and concepts for everything we do in our process, every ministry, and our church. We made a list of priorities to answer the questions, “What do we value so much that we want to be a part of everything we do? What do we want our church to be known for?”

  1. Biblical Truth

    We want everything we do to be based on the Bible. Not only are we are saved through God’s word (1 Peter 1:23), we also grow as disciples through God’s word. In His prayer for all His disciples, Jesus asked the Father to “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). We believe everything the church does should be guided and governed by God’s truth. In everything we do, we want to clearly communicate God’s truth to others in a loving, understandable, relevant way.

  1. Prayer

We want everything we do to be powered by prayer. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We believe prayer is an essential, critical, central activity for the church. We believe that apart from Jesus, we can do nothing (John 15:6). We believe that God hears and answers our prayers to accomplish His will in us and the world (1 John 5:14-15). In everything, we want to be praying people.

  1. Intentional Relationships

We want everything we do to be rooted in relationships. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16). “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). We believe God made each of us for relationships. Real, significant, lasting relationships don’t just happen, so we value intentionality in developing and deepening relationships with others. We believe true discipleship can only happen in community with other Christians. Discipleship doesn’t just happen, so we value intentionally helping others grow to be like Christ.

  1. Love

In everything we do, we want to be led by love. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:30-31). The highest virtue is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). We value genuine love–not merely a feeling or empty words. Real love means that we act sacrificially by giving of ourselves to others for their blessing and benefit. We want everything we do to be done from a motive of genuine love of God and others. We want everything we do to be done in a spirit of love. We want our love to be evident.

  1. Grace

We want everything we do to be governed by grace. Paul prayed for the church at Corinth, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you” (1 Corinthians 16:23). We understand that we all need grace. We believe that because we have been shown God’s infinite, unfathomable grace, we should also be willing to extend grace to others. We want to be a church known for showing grace to one another in the midst of our struggles and failures. We don’t want to be known for legalism, which only gives rise to discouragement, contempt, and further rebellion. We want to be a place where grace abounds, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:14).

  1. Giving Our Best

We want everything we do to be our best. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” (Colossians 3:23). We value giving our best to God in everything we do, knowing that our efforts are really for Him. God is pleased when we offer Him our best from a sincere heart as an act of worship. While we don’t want to make excellence an idol or to communicate to anyone that they aren’t good enough, we do want each person to give his or her personal best to God by planning, preparing, and working hard so that He is glorified and satisfied by a job well done.

Our Prayer

This is also sometimes known as a vision statement. It is a statement that sums up what we pray God will do in our church through our process.

It is our prayer that God would make us a church that makes disciples who know Him, grow in Him, and go for Him. We pray that God would bless our efforts to actively reach lost, unchurched, and de-churched families in our area. We pray that God will give us a heart of compassion for our community that compels us to minister to the marginalized.

 

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