Exploring Providence Part 1: Vision & Values

[0:00] But that is our statement of faith that we adhere to, that we hold to. So I wanted to make sure that you had that so you can read that on the side.! All joking aside, there will be no, like, multiple choice test.

[0:13] But life is the test, right? In terms of what we hold on to, what we believe, and what our convictions are. That's for you. But we're going to focus mostly on really our beliefs and expectations and attitudes of Providence Community Church.

[0:29] And so the vision of Providence Community Church is truth and beauty in community. Truth and beauty in community.

[0:40] So what does that mean? First of all, we believe that God has revealed himself and his plans for his creation in his word, and his word is truth. His word is truth.

[0:50] So we believe the Bible is, you know, all scripture is God breathes. And so we believe in his word being the truth and standard for our lives. And how we can know God.

[1:03] And what God is like. How we can be saved. How we can know the gospel. And then how we can live. Like we heard about this morning in the sermon. Jesus saves us and then sends us with responsibility.

[1:15] And then the truth and beauty, value beauty, is a nod to the classical transcendent values, where we don't just celebrate truth, but we celebrate beauty as well.

[1:30] We love for beauty and goodness, and we emphasize things like feasting and a grateful pursuit of the good life for the glory of God.

[1:40] So what does a true life look like? What does a beautiful life look like? So truth and beauty in community. That's the vision for Providence. So now I've got any questions on that real quick.

[1:53] And we can ask questions. We can dial out throughout. This class will probably take about an hour and a half or so, depending on how quick we go. But feel free to ask questions as we go. And if you wanted more food, you can grab some more food, too.

[2:05] All right. So what do we believe at Providence? What do we believe at Providence? I'm going to go over the seven shared values of Sovereign Grace Churches. This is the seven shared values of Sovereign Grace Churches, which will encompass and encapsulate the beliefs of our church.

[2:25] So we believe in Reformed theology. We are essentially Reformed as a church, which really, when we boil it down to it, is that all glory is to God for everything.

[2:37] God receives the glory for everything. The glory for creation. The glory for salvation. The glory for towards, you know, the end of the age.

[2:51] Everything we give God the glory for. So scripture presents the all-glorious triune God as the source and end of all things, sovereignly working all things according to his will.

[3:04] And at the center of God's purpose in the world is the exaltation of his glory through the redemption of sinners. So we are essentially Reformed in our theology.

[3:17] We also hold to a gospel-centered value in doctrine and preaching. Gospel-centered value in doctrine and preaching.

[3:27] So we believe that the gospel, the good news of God's saving activity in Jesus Christ, is the pinnacle of his redemptive acts, the center of the Bible story, and the essential message of our faith, life, and witness.

[3:42] So we are gospel-centered. We believe that the gospel is the major overlying storyline of the Bible. And that everything in the Bible relates to, you know, Christ or God's preparation for Christ, or Christ's accomplishment, what he did by living perfect life, dying on the cross, rising from the grave, or then the implications of Christ's life and death.

[4:13] So everything's centered on the gospel. And we are committed to preaching the gospel, singing the gospel, praying the gospel, building our churches upon the gospel.

[4:27] All right. So that was value number two, gospel-centered doctrine and preaching. Then we have continuationist pneumatology. Continuationist pneumatology.

[4:39] A couple big words. We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and is alive and active in the world, and especially in the church.

[4:52] So with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God's purpose to dwell among his people entered a new era. We believe that the Holy Spirit desires to continually fill each believer with increased power for the Christian life and witness, including the giving of his supernatural gifts for the building up of the church and for various works of ministry in the world.

[5:14] So we believe that the Spirit is active and alive in our sanctification. If someone's going through suffering, and not grumbling, not complaining, but giving glory and gratitude to God, that is a work of the Spirit.

[5:30] If someone is growing and repenting of sin, that is a work of the Spirit. In addition to the extraordinary gifts, things like tongues and prophecy and healing, which we do believe are still active in the world, God bless you, and the church, but we believe in broad activity of the Spirit.

[5:52] Continuationist pneumatology, pneumatology is a study of the knowledge of the Spirit, and continuationist, the Spirit is still working and alive. So we're not cessationists. So that's a big one.

[6:06] That can be always an area of opportunity for discussion. Any questions on that? Or anything I've shared so far? Good. All right. Let's keep rolling.

[6:17] So one of our other values as a church is complementarian leadership in the home and church. Complementarian leadership in the home and church. What does that mean?

[6:28] We believe that men and women are designed by God to be equal, to be equal in dignity and worth and value.

[6:41] However, we believe that they're given distinct roles within the home and church. So we believe that it was God's glorious plan to create men and women in his image.

[6:52] So men and women both are in God's image. Giving them equal dignity and value in his sight, while appointing differing and complementary roles for them within the home and the church.

[7:04] And because these roles give different expressions to God's image and humanity, they should be valued and pursued in joy and faith. So we could talk a long time about, you know, what are the distinct roles of men and women within the church.

[7:18] We can talk later, I can give recommendations for various books and resources that can help unpack what that means. But we do believe that men and women equal in value, equal in dignity, both in the image of God, but with complementary roles in the home and church.

[7:37] All right. Number five, we believe that churches should be elder-governed and elder-led. And I'll introduce you to the leadership team a little bit later of the church. We believe that Jesus Christ reigns as head over his church and he gives to his church elders or pastors to govern and lead local churches under his authority.

[7:57] We believe that men qualified by both character and gifting are to serve as elders, shepherding God's people as under-shepherds of Christ. And a church's health is to a great degree dependent on the health of its plurality.

[8:11] So, obviously, the church's members are responsible for watching their lives, watching their doctrine, and living for Christ.

[8:25] But certainly also, the health of the church will very much be, I'll say, dependent upon the health of the church's plurality, the elder team.

[8:38] All right. Six, we've got church planting, outreach, and global mission. So, our gospel centrality entails not only treasuring the gospel personally, but sharing it passionately.

[8:53] We talked about that a little bit today. We touched on it a little bit today. How God calls us and commissions us and sends us to share his message of salvation to our family, friends, neighbor, community, workplace, to the ends of the earth.

[9:12] And, as a church, we're committed to that. We'll talk a little bit about our missions involvement, and we'll talk a little bit about our evangelistic involvement in the community throughout today's class. But we are, we believe that the risen Christ has commissioned his church to make disciples of all nations.

[9:29] We believe that this commission falls to us and to all believers, and that it's fulfilled in a primary way through church planting, whereby the gospels proclaimed converts are formed into communities of disciples.

[9:42] So, we very much want to build up this congregation and see us grow in maturity and see us grow in number so that more people are hearing the gospel, more people are hearing the Bible.

[9:54] we also desire, we long to plant churches as well. So, we're not looking, we're looking to, we're looking to plant churches as God allows and as resources, people, time, treasure, talents, God provides.

[10:13] We like to go out and plant churches in the Kansas City area and beyond. So, that's church planting, outreach, and global mission. And the seventh shared value that we share with sovereign grace churches is we're united in fellowship, mission, and governance.

[10:31] So, we believe that the unity for which Jesus prayed among his people should find concrete expression among believers and churches. Indeed, the New Testament testifies to a vibrant interdependence among churches in the first century.

[10:42] So, Providence is part of sovereign grace churches. We are within the Midwest, Northwest region of sovereign grace churches. So, we are friendly with, in cooperation with, interdependent with other churches in Minnesota, in Oregon, in South Dakota, that being our region, and then obviously also throughout the rest of the country and globally with sovereign grace churches.

[11:10] So, we are united in fellowship and mission and governance. We're not just here, you know, kind of on an island. But we've got resources. We've got people there to serve us and help us and encourage us.

[11:25] This past Saturday, I got to sit on a call with some of the regional guys just talking about evangelism. And what is, we went around and shared, each church got to share, what are you doing to reach your community?

[11:37] And I got to hear some good, good things from other churches and I got to share some good stuff that we're doing as a church to share the gospel. So, we're not here alone. We're in partnership with other churches, which is, I think, glorious.

[11:52] All right, so, those are our seven shared values from the core beliefs of Providence Community Church. You also have the statement of faith in your hands, so that also encompasses a broad, a wide variety of theological beliefs that we hold to as a church that we have adopted as our church statement of faith and that is derivative of our partnership and connection with sovereign grace churches.

[12:21] So, I'll stop there. That was a lot of information. We've got the seven shared values, the doctrine of our church. Any questions concerns, or any...

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