OUR MISSION
We believe that God is moving in every person's life, and we want to come alongside you to help propel you forward in your faith. Throughout scripture, and in our lives, we've seen God move through 4 significant moves: 1) Experience Community, 2) Encounter God, 3) Claim Purpose, and 4) Pursue Calling. Wherever you find yourself in these, we want to help you find your next step.
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CORE VALUES
1. JESUS IS OUR HOPE
We understand that sin came into the world and fractured all things, leaving the world in desperate need of salvation. Without Jesus stepping in, our outcome for this life is hopeless, empty, and terminal. Through His sacrifice and resurrection, Jesus is our ultimate provision and our only hope for a better way, a better life, and a better future. This is what it means to receive His gift of grace. This cannot be earned. Rather, the death and resurrection of Jesus makes His grace available to us so we can enter into a life more abundant, filled with meaning and purpose. This type of radical transformation from being subject to the consequence of sin to being a child of God free from sin is good news!
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John 14:6
Romans 6:23
John 10:10
2. GOD'S WORD IS OUR FOUNDATION
Each day we are influenced by the culture of this world and the distorted values within it. Relentlessly, it will fight for our attention. We believe that God’s Word serves as a foundation for our lives and an anchor for our souls. Its teachings motivate and encourage us to follow the person of Jesus in the way that leads to life - to love God, to keep His commandments, to love people, and to renew our thinking that we would have the mind of Christ. We are a people who value the Word of God above all else and believe it is a necessity for our daily lives. It serves as the foundation of our church as it guides us to see and seek Jesus in everything we do.
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Hebrews 4:12
Psalm 119:105
James 1:22
3. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS OUR GUIDE AND HELPER
We believe in the promise that Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to live within us. The Holy Spirit, being part of the trinity, is our helper, comforter, counselor, advocate and ultimately our gift from God to enable us to know Him deeper and to follow Him more closely. As believers, we are to partner with the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives. We ask Him to invade our lives and we willingly make room for Him. It is in the context of this partnership with us that the Holy Spirit fulfills His role as our Helper. As we journey through the life we are called to, we know it is not done by our strength alone, rather by the very power of God being active in our lives.
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John 14:26
Acts 2:28
Galatians 5:22-25
4. SERVING IS OUR CALLING
We believe Jesus came to the world to serve. As believers, we are also instructed to serve just as Jesus did. We believe that as a church we serve God by serving others. God desires for us to take His approach to servant leadership - to love, encourage, welcome and support those who follow Him, but also those who are far away from Him. While serving is not always convenient for us, it is through this action of serving that we are being obedient to Him. This opens up His blessings for our lives. It is through serving that we are able to discover our God given purpose.
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Mark 10:45
1 Peter 4:10
Acts 20:35
5. GENEROSITY IS OUR LIFESTYLE
We believe in a generous God who desires for His people to partake in sharing this element of generosity with others. As generosity becomes our lifestyle, we believe that it can be expressed in many different ways. While it can be displayed through financial means, we consider generosity to also be seen through discipling people. We will grow in a deeper awareness of God’s generosity towards us, in turn living a generous life.
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Hebrews 13:16
2 Corinthians 9:6-7
2 Corinthians 9:11
6. AUDACIOUS FAITH DRIVES OUR VISION
We believe that faith is audacious and requires a sense of courage. This requires boldness and the commitment to live by faith in the world for God’s glory. By operating in a spirit of audacious faith, we are driven to lean upon the leadership of the Holy Spirit and to be dependent upon His strength to act morally and to operate with godly convictions.
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Mark 11:22-24
Hebrews 4:16
James 1:6
7. GRACE IS OUR RESPONSE
Grace is defined as, “God’s life, power and righteousness given to us by undeserved favor”. Practically, this means that God’s favor and grace are received by those who did not adequately earn or deserve it. As sinners we are in need of grace each and every day. This is received by humbling ourselves in order to extend His grace to those around us. This is shown by loving when there seems to be no reason, serving when someone has not earned it, and forgiving quickly when we have been wronged. As humans, we cannot extend this level of grace to others unless our eyes are solely focused on Jesus, as He is the ultimate source of grace.
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Romans 3:24
2 Timothy 1:9
James 4:6
8. ZEAL SETS OUR PACE
We believe that we have the opportunity to take part in the most significant mission here on Earth. For that reason, we as a faith community operate with energy and enthusiasm in everything we do. Our ambition to see the lost become found is the ultimate reason behind serving both within our church and in our community. We commit to operating with intentionality and urgency as His people are of vital importance to us.
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Colossians 3:23
Romans 12:11
Psalm 69:9
9. KINGDOM IS OUR CULTURE
Jesus tells us to "seek first the Kingdom of God." We believe as a church that there is a kingdom worth pursuing. We strive to diligently pursue the Kingdom of God, where Jesus is our King and His people are called to serve Him and follow His will. The way this is displayed in our culture is through how we treat, serve, and love others.
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Matthew 6:10, 33
Philippians 3:20
John 13:34-35
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Church For The ONE is a part of the Church of the Nazarene (CON). The Church of the Nazarene is a Protestant Christian church in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition. A full description of the CON Articles of Faith can be found here.
OUR VISION
We seek to reshape the perception of the Church's relevance by becoming the first place people look to for identity, community, and help. We will be a church that is "obsessed with the one", focused on reaching those who are doubting, done with religion, and disengaged from faith; a church that feels such urgency to share the good news of Jesus and help others claim their divine purpose that our comfort no longer factors into the equation.
The life of our church is the activated faith of every individual. We will always call people to a step forward toward Jesus, believing that everyone has gifting and calling upon their life, regardless of their current starting point. We seek to connect people to the bigger thing that God is doing by leading them from serving while being discipled, to discipling while serving. We will build a foundation of faith through Scripture that people can always rely upon, a springboard for their future calling.
Our call is to transform our community, building the leaders and shaping the systems so that our community would look more like God's kingdom than it does today. Our commitment is to engage 1% of Lakeland in active ministry and to celebrate the baptism of 3,571 people before 2030. While we begin in our neighborhoods, we will not allow our current address to define our future footprint but will expand in our influence and ethnic diversity. We seek to continuously make a greater impact through helping other churches, deploying leaders, expanding online, and planting campuses.
This is Church: grace that is not devoid of truth. This is Church: an intergenerational community that swims against the current of prolonged adolescence. This is Church: a people humbled so that we will love as God loves. This is Church: so healthy that the gospel is irresistible. We are not a cruise ship, but a battleship. We are the Church.
