OUR CORE VALUES
(updated 2018)COMMUNITY
Our ultimate goal as a Community is to live out the teachings of Christ by learning to walk in love. Jesus taught that deep love and affection was intended to be the defining characteristic of His followers. The love of Christ is unconditional; therefore if we are to love one another as Christ loved us, we will learn to love without conditions and all grow into having a ‘love filled’ experience of heaven on earth in community, as we do life together. We seek to create an authentic, performance-free culture that encourages each person to be themselves.
FAMILY
At the core of our ministry is the belief that we are bringing the lost sons and daughters home to the Father’s heart, who is a loving, kind and wonderful Papa! Many believers love Jesus and many seek the Spirit, but so many do not know the Father heart of God. The work of the Father to set “the solitary in families” (Psalm 68) is at the heart of what it is to be an apostolic community. An apostolic community is a family where spiritual mothers and fathers live in harmony with spiritual sons and daughters as they pursue the advancement of the kingdom together.
JOY
We are a community of joy filled drinkers of the pleasures of God. We are called to be filled with the Spirit and live a joy filled supernatural life that transcends the natural possibilities. We agree that the Joy of God is our strength!
PEACE & REST
We value rest and peace. We believe in doing life in God’s strength and walking in peace. Those who walk with the Prince of Peace will emanate peace. We believe that a peaceful and rest-filled life will help us to live in a sustained revival culture that do
CARING LEADERSHIP
Our pastoral care is made up of people who love people! We seek to be great lovers of all people and we believe in creating a safe environment. We want to bring healing to anyone who has suffered abuse in the Body of Christ. We seek to minister according to the heart of the Lord in everything we do as leaders. We believe there is a realm of grace in which leaders can help to establish in the lives of others both the Lordship of Christ and reconnection to the authority of the Word of God without controlling or manipulating them. Caring but strong leadership is the ideal to which we continually aspire.
GRACE
We believe that Christian living is built upon the foundation of the grace of God. Salvation is a free gift of God’s grace and we cannot earn a greater standing before God on the basis of our own works. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the free gift of God – Not by works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8,9) We do works of faith for God (James 2:17) out of the overflow of the grace and power we are given from God. God’s grace not only saves us, it also undergirds and empowers the Christian to serve and obey the Lord.
LORDSHIP OF CHRIST
We are deeply committed to walking in obedience to the Lordship of Christ. We uphold the Lordship of Christ in our Community and to teach everyone to be submitted to what Christ has asked us to do. (Matthew 28:20) The Grace of God has been given to empower us, enabling us to live obedient lives.
SUPERNATURAL
The supernatural power of God is the means by which the Kingdom of God will be revealed, established and experienced on earth and in our lives. Jesus preached the gospel. He cast out demons, He healed the sick, He healed the broken hearted, He fed the poor and He called us to do the very same things that He did and more! We lay hold of the release of the power of the kingdom through prayer and fasting and by training and equipping believers in all areas of the supernatural.
HEALING THE HEART
We all have broken hearted places within us! God is seeking to invade those places and heal us so we become more loving, more Christ-like and better able to host His glorious presence! Our ministry is focussed on receiving the transformational, supernatural power of the Spirit to restore our emotions, hearts, minds and will to be what God desires us to be!
THE WORD OF GOD
As a church we are in hot pursuit of the truth. We have a passion for teaching the undiluted Word of God and for laying hold of the Word of the Lord to the Church. We believe that God is speaking to His Church both through the written Word and through the prophetic Word. When the two are combined, and the Word of God is yoked to the prophetic, we begin to really grow as a church because every week we seek to receive a “word in season” from the Lord. (see Matthew 24:45)
WORSHIP, INTIMACY
& GLORY
This truly is at the core of all that we do. The cultivation of intimacy with God is the foundation for doing the works of the Kingdom. Without intimacy we will not know His voice and His heart for us. Jesus desires us to be a prophetic people who all learn to hear His voice and know His heart, to prophesy, to minister prophetically and to equip others. Worship is the very heartbeat of this pursuit of intimacy. As we gaze on Him in our worship we are transfixed by His character and glory and drawn into deep, transformative experiences of intimacy with the Father.
REVIVAL & INTERCESSION
We believe that creating a culture of revival, where we call each other out of apathy and into fervent love, is what God is longing for. Right now, all across the earth, God is pouring out His Spirit and many are being filled with power, boldness and a new love for God. This revival culture will change the face of whole towns and even regions as the believers contend for His Spirit to be poured out. Revival culture is rooted and grounded in prayer and intercession and because of that we hold many intercession groups throughout the week.
SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT
We are engaged in a spiritual battle with the powers of darkness and there is no place for passivity in a war. We don’t want or desire warfare, but it exists because the Spirit of Christ dwells within us. Therefore we must be constantly vigilant, discerning and watchful because our enemy, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion seeking all who he can devour. We all need to be trained in defensive spiritual warfare and all learn to put on the full armour of God. We are also called to be on the ‘offensive’, taking ground against the enemy, and to invade and plunder his kingdom for the kingdom of God.
MINISTRY TO THE POOR
“Remember the Poor!” (Galatians 2:10) God’s heart is for the poor and downtrodden of society, those who are most often overlooked and neglected by society, as it pursues riches and success at the expense of people’s lives. The heart of the Father is to show compassion to the weak and to display that mercy triumphs over judgment. We seek to impact the world through societal transformation that helps to bring relief from the oppression of poverty. As a community, we are partnering into many areas around the world, including indigenous Australian communities, Cambodia and India.
CREATIVITY & BEAUTY
God is full of beauty and loves to create things and He has placed that same desire within all of us. We love and desire to see creativity released in all its forms. We desire to explore new frontiers in the arts, music, dance and drama as a powerful way to express the heart of God. We seek to nurture creativity in people by encouraging one another to discover and cultivate the creative gifts that God has placed in each of our lives.
TENDERNESS & HUMILITY
We value humility. A humble heart is one that is tender and soft-hearted in relationships! God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. We grow in humility by continually acknowledging that we do not have anything that we have not received from Him. Humility is attractive to God and causes Him to draw near to our hearts.
MENTORING / DISCIPLESHIP
We are called to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) As disciplers, our goal is to equip everyone for ministry, to teach, to train, and ultimately to be sent out. The goal of Christian mentoring is to become like Christ in every respect, replicating His heart, His mind and His ministry in us. We aspire to mentor every person into the likeness of Christ.