In this message Pastor Brian explains the Mission, Vision, Practices, and Identities that God has given us in his word.

Teaching Notes:

Our Mission, Vision, Practices, and Identities

Philippians 1:27; 2:2

            Every church, if it is to be effective, must know whey they exist, where they are headed, and how they are going to get there. The Bridge is still an infant church. We’re still in diapers. We are still learning and growing. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a clearly defined Mission, Vision, and Practices. This morning we are going to break with our usual study in the Book of Acts for a special message.  It has been said that if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time! The Bridge has a very focused aim, and from time to time we need to reiterate exactly what we are about, especially for new people that have only recently joined us.

            In Phil.1:27 Paul says, “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.”  There are several things we need to take not of in this passage:

➢  Notice “Only”. Paul’s meaning by using this word is something like “Above all” or “Only one thing concerns me” or “the most important thing is” or “above all else.” In other words, what he is about to say is crucial and of extreme importance.

➢  Notice “gospel”. Paul repeats this word twice. Whatever was so important to him was in reference to the gospel. The gospel is something we talk about a lot at The Bridge. We believe it is the center and core of everything we are about. It is what saves us, and it is what transforms us. We unite together around the gospel!

➢  Notice “one”. Paul wants to emphasize how important their unity is. They must pursue one spirit and mind. They are not to be divided or fractured in any way.

➢  Notice what they are to do: “standing firm” and “striving together”. Standing firm is the picture of the soldiers marching into battle against the enemy together refusing to give any ground when the enemy charges upon them. If you’ve ever seen the movie Gettysburg, you remember a scene in which the Confederates were trying to take Little Round Top. They kept on storming that hill again and again, and the Union soldiers at the top led by Joshua Chamberlain kept pushing them back. If the rebels got Little Round Top, they would have likely gone on to defeat the Union army, and today the United States might be 2 different confederation of States – the north and the south! But Joshua Chamberlain and the North “stood firm”, even when they ran out of ammunition. Rather than give up the hill, they fixed bayonets and ran screaming down the hill at the Confederates.  Striving together is a picture of an athletic team straining their muscles to the limit to win the competition, like those rowers in the Olympic games. Notice that the soldier and the athlete do not try to fight or win the competition alone. The soldier is part of an army, and the athlete is part of a team. They must work in unity with their army or team in order to win. What are they striving together for? For the faith of the gospel. This refers to their mission to spread the gospel to all people. The CEV says, “to get others to believe the good news.” The NIRV says, “I will know that you work to spread the teachings of the good news.” 

            Then notice a few verses later in Phil.2:2 “make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”

➢  Again notice the emphasis on unity:  same mind, same love, united in spirit, one purpose.

➢  Notice “purpose.” Paul has already specified their purpose in 1:27. It is to strive together for the faith of the gospel. In other words, they are to demonstrate and declare the gospel for the purpose of making disciples and lovers of Jesus. 

I want to key in on that phrase “intent on one purpose” this morning. God wants The Bridge to be intent on one purpose. For that reason, we are going to take some time this morning to define and articulate what we are all about – what our Mission, Vision, Practices and Identities are here at The Bridge. 

1.  Our Mission:  To talk about our mission is simply to talk about our purpose. What is our reason for existence? Why are we here? What has God called us to do? We don’t figure out our Mission by popular vote, or by personal preference. It’s not like every church can just decide what mission they want to have. God has already given the church its mission, and whether we like it or not doesn’t matter. God tells us what we are to be about very clearly in His Word.

➢  God’s highest priority is to glorify Himself. That’s why He does all things. Notice Jn.12:27-28; Eph.1:6,12,14.; Rev.4:11. This is just a brief sampling. If you would like to delve into this topic further, go to www.thebridgeonline.net, look under Resource Library, go to a series called The God Of The Bible, and click on “The God of the Bible Does Everything For His Own Glory.” In that message I listed 29 passages of Scripture that point to this truth – 16 from the OT and 13 from the NT. So, if God’s own highest priority is to glorify Himself, certainly this is also the church’s highest priority. But how specifically has God called us to glorify Him? 

➢  Mt.28:18-20.  In this passage Jesus gives us what we call The Great Commission. These are the church’s marching orders for all time until Jesus returns. There we are told in no uncertain terms to “make disciples of all the nations.” So, how do we glorify God? Well there are many ways, but one of the primary ways is by obeying Jesus and making disciples of all the nations.

➢  Mt.28:20 tells us that we are to teach these disciples to observe all things that I commanded you. Well Jesus had just got done commanding them to make disciples. Therefore, these disciples need to be taught that they are to make disciples. 

With that as a Biblical foundation, I think we are ready to lay out God’s Mission for The Bridge.  We have tried to make this Mission Statement solidly Biblical and yet exceedingly simple at the same time.

“Our Mission is to glorify God by making disciples who make disciples.”

Let’s all repeat that last statement out loud together.  This is why we exist. We don’t exist as a church so that we can isolate ourselves from the world with its sin and depravity. We don’t exist for ourselves, our comfort, our security, so that we can have a nice, clean life, safe and free from the problems and pain in this world. No! God has called us into existence to bring Him glory by making disciples and equipping them to make disciples. 

2.  Our Vision:  A “Vision” has to do with what it will look like down the road if we are faithful to fulfill our mission.  What will be the end result 5 or 10 or 20 years from now if we obey Jesus’ Mission of glorifying God by making disciples who make disciples?

“Our Vision is to see multiplication take place on every level:  disciples, leaders, bridge groups and churches.” 

Our Vision is driven by our Mission.  This means that if we will faithfully and consistently stay the course and keep obeying Jesus, we should see disciples, not just added, but multiplied. If each disciple actually gives himself to making other disciples, 1 disciple becomes 2, becomes 4, becomes 8, becomes 16, becomes 32, becomes 64, becomes 128, becomes 256, becomes 512.  The same would hold true about leaders multiplying leaders, missional communities and churches. By the grace of God, I dream of a day in which this tiny little band of disciples has grown to a place where we are not only effectively making disciples in Rancho Cordova, but we are sending people out with money and people to plant other churches around the world. My dream is not just to plant a church, but that we become part of a disciple-making, church-planting movement.

Our Vision is not to get a lot of people to attend church meetings. That is really not what we are about. Now we are all for gathering: it is commanded in Scripture and it is critical for our spiritual health, but that is not the point. The point is to equip believers for the work of ministry which is to go and make disciples out of people who are not yet followers of Jesus. Our point in gathering together is to be equipped so that we can scatter to make disciples throughout the week.  

So there you have our Mission and Vision. But the Big Question is “How are we going to get there.” Mission answers the What (What has God called us to do?).  Vision answers the Where (Where will it lead us?). We need some Practices that will answer the question, How (How are we going to get there?).

3.  Practices:  Just as we have no right to come up with our own Mission, but must search the Scriptures to find out what Mission God has already given us, the same is true of our Practices. What Practices has God already given us in His Word to accomplish the Mission He has given us?  I believe we can boil them down to 4 primary Practices:  Loving, Reaching, Connecting, Equipping.  Where am I getting these 4 Practices?  From the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.  Loving comes from the Great Commandment, and Reaching, Connecting and Equipping come from the Great Commission.  Let me show you this.

➢ Loving God and Others: The Great Commandment – Luke 10:25-28.  Jesus taught here that to love God and people was the most important thing we can do with our life. We start by loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. What will that look like?  Worship! Obedience! Prayer! Word! Personal Holiness! Making disciples!  What will loving our neighbor as ourselves look like? Sacrificing our Time to help others. Sacrificing our Money and Possessions to help others. Sacrificing our Talents to help others. We love Jesus and the people of Rancho Cordova and desire for God to use us to bring spiritual blessing and transformation to our city.

➢ Reaching Lost and Broken People:  This Practice stems from the Great Commission in Mt.28:18-20, as do the 2 other Practices. In Mt.28:18-20 Jesus not only tells us what we are to do (make disciples), He tells us how we are to do it (going, baptizing, teaching). Each of those 3 participles corresponds to a Practice. We reach lost and broken people by going to them. This is to intentionally demonstrate and declare the gospel. If we are going to be faithful to Jesus’ Mission, we must be concerned for those that are outside of our walls. Are city is full of people who are living outside of a saving relationship with God. As a result they are broken, messed up, and enslaved to sin. God has called us to reach out to them, love them, and serve them, and point them to their only hope – Jesus Christ and the gospel of His grace. He has also called us to reach out to those that have been burned out on religion, but still love Jesus. Jesus said in Mk.16:15 “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

So, what would Going look like on a practical level? It would include cleaning our neighbor’s windows or going shopping for her, buying groceries for a poor family, or giving someone a ride to the doctor who has no car. But it would also include knocking on doors and sharing the gospel with people, or starting an Investigative Bible Study at Mama Sue’s Restaurant, or starting Dinner and Story Nights in low-income apartment complexes. So, this Practice is intentionally evangelistic. We are demonstrating and declaring the gospel in the hopes of lost people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. 

➢ Connecting People Into Authentic and Meaningful Community:  Jesus taught that the way we make disciples is by going and by baptizing. When we baptize someone we are incorporating him/her into the local body of Christ. Notice Acts 2:41 says, “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.” Notice those who were baptized were “added.” Added to what? Added to the body of believers in Jerusalem, the church. Baptism “adds” people to a local body of believers. It is the initiatory rite by which new believers become part of a local body. Through baptism, 3,000 new believers were “connected” to other believers in Jerusalem. 

➢ How did those early Christians live in community?  Acts 2:42-47 give us a vivid description. Doesn’t your heart yearn to experience that kind of deep level of Christian community?

Think about authentic and meaningful community for a moment. People need to belong – not just Christians, but everyone. We need to provide a place for people to connect with others and belong, even if they don’t know Jesus yet. Jesus often spent time with sinners, tax-collectors, and prostitutes, and they loved His company. We need to take our cues from Jesus. At the same time, we need to connect believers into meaningful and authentic community. Have you ever been part of a Christian group where you felt you needed to act like someone you weren’t, or wear a religious mask? That is destructive to true spiritual growth. So, connecting people to authentic community means that we will seek to create environments in which we can be honest about our lives and our spiritual journey.

➢ Equipping believers to be and make disciples:  Jesus Christ has called us to equip Christians to be disciple makers, and we need to take that calling very seriously. Eph.4:11-12 says, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”  In this text we see that it is the job of every Christian to do the work of service. It is the job of some to equip others for that work. No Christian should be on the sidelines watching the game. Some are players, and others are Player-Coaches, but no one is a spectator. We shouldn’t be content with making disciples alone. We want to make disciples who will make other disciples. In order for that to take place, training, coaching, modeling and equipping needs to take placed. 

So how are we going to do that practically?  Equipping will take place in the preaching of the Word on Sunday mornings, in our DNA groups, and in our Bridge Groups. Probably the best way to make disciples is in life-on-life relationships where we spend time doing things like working, playing, recreating, and eating together. In order to actually accomplish the goal of disciple-making we will need to radically reorient our lives so this life-on-life discipling can take place. Just as Reaching corresponds to “going”, and Connecting corresponds to “baptizing”, so Equipping corresponds to “teaching.” Jesus said that the way we make disciples is not only by going and baptizing, but by teaching them to observe all things He has commanded us (Mt.28:20). 

These are the 4 Practices that will serve as an anchor to keep us on Mission here at The Bridge.  Our Mission and Practices will also function as a kind of “grid” by which we will consider all decisions. If a proposed decision or solution doesn’t pass the Practices test, we won’t pursue it. So, we’ll ask ourselves, “Will this decision push us forward to love God and others? Will it help us to reach out to lost and broken people with the gospel? Will it enable us to connect others together in meaningful and authentic community? Will it equip us to be and make disciples?” 

These are things that we really want to be all about, not just say we are about. If at any point we lose our way, and we are not giving our lives to these things, then gently rebuke us and call us back to our mission. Truly, if we are not about making disciples, we really don’t have a right to exist as a church.

So, let’s sum all of this up:

“We practice loving God and others, by reaching out to lost and broken people, and connecting them into meaningful and authentic communities, where we can equip them to be and make disciples.” 

4.  Our Identities:  We’ve answered the What, Where, and How questions. One final question remains. Who? Who are we?  Interestingly, by looking at our Practices we can see who we are.

➢ Servants:  What kind of a person Loves God and People?  A servant! Because we are Servants, we love God and People. As a result, at The Bridge we value Servanthood.

➢ Missionaries:  What kind of a person reaches out to the lost and broken? Missionaries! Because we are Missionaries, we reach out to the lost and broken. As a result, at The Bridge we value Mission.

➢ Family:  What do we call a group that connects with one another in authentic and meaningful relationships?  Family! Because we are Family, we connect with one another in authentic and meaningful relationships. As a result, at The Bridge we value Community. 

➢ Disciples:  What kind of a person equips others to be and make disciples? Disciples! Because we are Disciples we equip others to be and make Disciples. As a result, at The Bridge we value the Scriptures. 

Our Core Values stem from our Core Identities:  Servanthood, Mission, Community, and Scripture. 

“We are a Family of Missionary Servants sent to make disciples who make disciples.” 

Application:

I hope this message has been helpful in helping you to understand what we are all about, where we are going, how we are going to get there, and what our core values are.   So what does it mean for you? If you believe that this Mission, Practices, and Identitites are Biblical, I encourage you to throw in your lot with us. Get involved! Determine that your life will count. Join a Bridge Group and a DNA group. What a tremendous privilege we have of living our lives for something that really matters! 1,000 years from now it won’t matter what kind of house you lived in, what kind of car you drove, or how much money you made. Your hobbies and recreations won’t have any significance. What will matter then will be the real people that you led to Christ and equipped to be thrust into His mission. Those people will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father forever and ever. God help all of us to really give our lives to that which really matters!
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Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By Brian Anderson. © Stone Bridge Ministries. Website: www.StoneBridgeMinistries.net