Our Identity

Every person has an identity. Your identity defines who you are, drives where you find your ultimate significance, and determines your life priorities and moral outlook. God created us to find our identity in him. But all of us have sought to find our identity in things less glorious than God—fame, money, sex, power, work, self-esteem, people, hobbies, and more. Our rebellion defined us; we were idolatrous, self-obsessed individuals and alienated from God.

But because of what God did for us in Jesus Christ, we have been fundamentally transformed. Our identity now and forever stands in who Jesus is and what he has done for us through the gospel. Christ now defines us; we are now...

God’s WORSHIPERS redeemed by his grace

Once we truly believed that the various idols we created and that the world offered us were worthy of all our devotion. Our preference was that of sin and Satan himself, to ignore the glory of God instead of enjoying the glory of God. But God loved us with a great love and chose to rescue us through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus came to take away our sins and destroy the devil’s works we once followed by dying on the cross and rising from the dead. Through faith in his finished work, Jesus broke sin’s power and gave us his new life, now to enjoy the glory of God in all we think, feel, say, and do.

God’s FAMILY in the strength of his love

Once our false worship destroyed our relationship with God and even wreaked havoc in our relationship with others. Even where our lives gave the appearance of serving others, our own selfish ends were motivating us. But God adopted us through Jesus Christ and by the gift of his Spirit. He made us part of his family, his household, his inheritance, forever. And because God first loved us, we now love God and each other. As God forms his perfect love in us, our affections for each other grow and we delight in serving, supporting, and strengthening one another as brothers and sisters.

God’s MISSIONARIES under his authority

Once we lived only for our favorites. While God demanded love for neighbor in all the world, we preferred to use our neighbor for the world. We loved spreading our own glory rather than our Creator’s glory. But God made us new people and joined us to his new people ruled by his love. Now we gladly serve and lay down our lives for the ultimate good of all others in God without distinction. Christ’s love compels us to go even beyond our neighbors to the nations, so that they too might share in the glorious life we’ve come to experience through Jesus Christ.

Our Vision

So, God has transformed us from being idolatrous and self-obsessed individuals to being a worshipping family of missionaries. Our vision for life then flows out of who God has made us to be in Christ. As God's worshipers, family, and missionaries, we exist to equip God's people (family) to delight in his glory (worshipers) and to declare his glory to our neighbors and the nations (missionaries).

Nothing gives us more joy than laboring in various ways to see God treasured in all his redeemed people, for this is where God has destined his world to arrive: “...the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (Rev 21:23-24).