Vision and Values
Vision – Who we are/who we want to be:
We aim to be a people whose lives reflect our love for Jesus and demonstrate His gospel. We intend to worship God, teach His word and pursue His purpose for Preston–all in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our hope is to extend Jesus’ love and compassion to those around us, loving people the way God loves people.
Loving people because God loves people.
1 John 4:19 – We love because he first loved us.
Values
Love God, Love others
We love God because of his love for us first. We want to express that love by spending time in His presence, worshiping Him, following Him, and becoming more like Him. In response to God’s love for us we seek to love one another, bearing with one another and showing each other the same grace and mercy shown to us by God.
The Kingdom of God
We want to see the rule and reign of God established in Preston. We long to see spiritual darkness undone, to see people’s lives transformed by the hearing of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, and to see God’s justice done where there is injustice.
Safety
We believe that people grow better in their faith if they are in an environment they trust and feel secure. We want to be a church where people are spiritually safe, emotionally safe, and physically safe.
Family
We believe an aspect of our role is to teach, train, equip and model how family members participate and how healthy families function. Church is not just a place to attend but it is a community to be part of. God has called us to be a multi-generational and multicultural church.
Power of the Holy Spirit
We want to live with a sense of expectancy and foster an environment of growth. Spiritual growth is a product of the initiating, empowering work of the Holy Spirit and of our active cooperation with Him. He engages our minds, wills and emotions and He expects us to respond.
Healing
We are always seeking to create an environment and practice of healing. We hope to see people experience spiritual, physical and emotional freedom and wholeness, as they spend time in God’s presence. People are healed and made whole by moving their attention from themselves onto Jesus. We place a high value on the Holy Spirit capturing people’s hearts and producing a change in them.
Accessibility
We believe that all who follow Jesus are equal in value and importance in the Kingdom of God. Everyone who attends our church should feel welcomed and included and be able to access all that we have to offer at every level of ability or learning. We are humble in our approach to learning how to do this well.
Doing the stuff
We want to do the stuff that Jesus did and intentionally serve the needs of the city and its people. We want to be noticeable in this city. As Christ loves us we want to love Preston in all the ways Christ calls us to.
The Word
We believe in hearing and listening to the voice of God whether that’s in his infallible written word in the Bible, or in prophetic words and pictures given by the Holy Spirit. Hearing and listening to prophetic words and pictures should always be done with careful discernment and the Bible should always be the ultimate standard against which they are tested.
Everybody gets to play
We believe that everybody who follows Jesus gets to participate in the Kingdom work! This is a place to come and try things, to have a go and to take some risks. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody can do everything, or would even be best at everything, but instead that Jesus intended for us all to be active participants.