Values and Vision

   Today, God is raising up many apostles and apostolic-minded churches to network together in order to bring in the end-time harvest. Apostles tend to bring people together around a common purpose, which often involves strengthening local churches, planting new works, raising up new leaders, and doing mission work here and overseas.

    In many cases, an apostle will pastor a local church and the life and liberty of that church will attract other churches and ministries who want to reach their area. Apostolic-minded churches are usually connected with other churches who share the same values and vision. However, these networks are not new denominations. Their form and function is different.

Apostolic networks have four basic things in common:  

1. They gather churches and people around specific purposes, not specific doctrinal distinctives or historical backgrounds.

2. They realize that the form and function of most present day denominations are not sufficient alone to get the harvest in. 

3. They encourage leadership to function with a higher level of authority than what would be allowed in most denominations.

4. They have a higher expectation of what a local church can do to impact the world.    

    To learn more about apostolic churches and movements, we recommend that you read C. Peter Wagner's books, “The New Apostolic Churches” and “Church Quake”.  Another book along the same line is: "Apostles and the Emerging Apostolic Movement" by David Cannistraci.

     To learn more about apostolic ministry and what we mean by the term apostle, click here.

ANABAPTIST VALUES – OUR QUALITY OF LIFE    

    Most modern church groups draw their primary values from some movement in Protestant history. Some draw inspiration from Luther, others from Calvin, while many others have drawn from Wesley. There are a number of areas where we have tried to maintain the good example set for us by the early Anabaptists, who made an invaluable contribution to the early Protestant Reformation. Some of their distinctives are still needed in the church today.

They believed that doing what Jesus said is central to our quality of life together. In a day when many people professed to be Christian, the Anabaptists insisted that you must show that you are a believer by actually doing what Jesus taught.

They believed that our relationships with others are a way of measuring the depth of our relationship with the Lord. The early Anabaptists seemed to put more of a premium on working at healthy personal relationships than most other groups at that time.

They believed in the priesthood of all believers. They did not believe in a domineering form of church government that controlled people’s faith. The Anabaptists were some of the first to call for servant leadership. They also understood from scripture that everyone should do their part to minister to the spiritual needs of others, even if they didn’t have the education required of priests.

They believed that there should be a great importance placed upon maintaining close and well-ordered communities and families. The Anabaptists wanted to get back to the Book of Acts, which meant having a strong sense of community where mutual aid was used to help each other. They cared for their own and stayed close together. 

They believed that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal. They understood that Jesus taught and demonstrated non-resistance because He knew that this would effectively stop the devil. Ours is a spiritual conflict, which needs to be fought by spiritual means.

To learn more about Anabaptist history Click Here