Gather Strong Church

About Who We Are

The Mission is what we, as a family, will DO together in order to accomplish the vision for GATHER STRONG. As we were crafting the Mission, it was important for us to create a very specific definable, and measurable Mission & Vision Statement with a few simple concise objectives that every family member - from the young to the wise - would be able to easily know, remember, and share with someone in one or two minutes. These objectives will give us movement and direction, allowing us to know what we're "going after" as a family and how we're going to get there.

With this in mind, there are 3 objectives in our Mission:

Gather (Family), Grow (Discipleship) and Go (Commission)

Mission: Gather - It's all about family

For us, family is not an objective, it's one of our values as well Jesus has paid the price that we might be adopted as children of God, inviting us into a family and calling us HIs "family". Yet one obstacle remains: Us! Our sin, our issues, our busyness, our walls, our pride, our selfishness make family hard! But the church is called to be a body, a family. Family is a reality we want every *Covenant believer (*more on this below) to experience, to love, and to fight for. Our success will NOT be measure by the number of people who we can fill seats with but by the depth of real relationship we experience with each other AND to which we invite the lost into. continue reading here

Mission: Grow- Discipleship: becoming like Jesus

For the follower of Jesus, discipleship is the act of becoming like Jesus under the mentoring of another follower who is a little farther on the journey than we are. Biblical discipleship requires and demands relationship, and love is the ground it is rooted in.

Our Family will GROW in the following contexts:

1-on-1 relationship
Small group (3-5 people)
Circle Training Session - CTS (10 - 12 people)
House Church (maybe 20-30 people)

The following are the Family Values we feel will encourage growth in our family:

Discipleship - Being and doing.
We believe everyone should participate - being discipled and discipling.
All Hands - No one too young or too old.
From the Elder or Pastor discipling next gen leaders to the brand new Christian discipling their unsaved friends, we're all called to this.

Mission: G0 - Answering the Great Commission

We believe the charge give by Jesus to His followers, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19)" applies to everyone and has a space for everyone. This is an ALL HANDS call from Jesus to His church.

Our family will answer this call to GO in two specific ways:

1. Pastor Your circles

All believers, work and exist in circles. Those circles include: family, work, school, friendships, hobbies, neighborhoods, etc .. We believe each believer is responsible "Pastor Their Circes" by serving, praying and leading those in their circles. In this way, each believer will be bringing the gospel and the presence of Christ to their circles. Instead of bringing their circles to the Sunday Worship service to hear the gospel, they will be leading their circles to Christ. This is our primary method to growth. This is why each Covenant believer must be trained to Pastor their Circles. We call this Circle Training Sessions - CTS. Cheesy name? Yes! We don't care. This training will include:

2. Starting New Gatherings

We love mega churches. We think they serve a great purpose in the kingdom of God. We just don't feel called to be one. Instead, as we grow, we will send out portions of our family in order to plant new churches. This allows us to remain smaller and maintain a relational family culture. This also allows us to spread the healthy thriving churches throughout our community.

We will do this by intentionally seeking/laboring to start new churches in and outside our community.
New churches provide opportunity for:

New leaders to lead
New and unique expressions of Jesus centered gatherings
Reaching new circles and communities that established churches aren't

We will start new churches by sending a portion of our family. This will serve to:

Keep us fresh
Stir up passion
Keep the mission of Jesus before us
Make room for new leaders in our midst
Create a vacuum only new believers can fill as we Pastor Our Circles
Prevent us for becoming bloated and stagnant.

Expression

Expression -

the personality and culture of our family

Whether we mean to or not, each gathering of people will have a personality, a culture, by which it expresses itself. We would rather shape ours purposefully than incidentally. The following values represent the kind of personality and culture we wish to create.

We ARE family - We will fight to stay relational with each other.
Belonging - God offered us belonging while we were still sinners: we will give it away freely to everyone.
Transparency - No posers allowed, Raw and Real! Whether it's but busting laughte4r or heart aching weeping, we will not hold back from the Lord or each other.
All Hands - Leaders are not superheroes and the rest of us spectators - everyone is vital: everyone is in the game.
Go BIG or go home! - We will dream crazy dreams that only God can fulfill.
CHURCH = church - We don't just love our church, we LOVE The Church and will server her locally, nationally and globally by using any and every resource we have.
Fringe - We WILL love the outcast, the least, the panhandlers and the homeless, like Jesus does.
Singin' & Prayin' - Worship is that we were made for so let's sing now and let's sing loud! Prayer moves the heart of God so let's do it a lot.
Weird Obedience - We will be obedient to the leading of the Spirit of God no matter how weird, uncomfortable, unreasonable or costly it is.
Power - We will humbly, desperately, and continually see the filling of the presence of God for the power to do and to be all that He has called us to.

Formation

The formation is the infrastructure, the nuts & bolts, that holds our family together.

Elder Ministry - Fathers & Mothers

The scriptures paint a picture of Elders deeply involved in the lives of the people under their care. Some of the Elders were gifted and anointed to preach and teach the Word, while others were gifted and anointed to shepherd and care for people. While there were times in the Book of Acts where we see the Elders taking part in a council to make a decision on behalf of the church, or Church, the epistles give us insight into the bulk of their work, which consists of encouraging, exhorting, correcting, teaching, preaching, praying for healing, leading, guiding, toiling, laboring, and working. These are very hands-on words. The last three, toiling, laboring and working, 1 Thessalonians 5:12 says are done “among you”. Paul tells Titus to “appoint Elders in every town” on the island of Crete, where he was ministering. In other

words, Elders were to be very accessible to people and able to be involved in their lives. The picture the N.T. paints of these church leaders is that of servants who are working among the people, laboring in their midst, toiling for the maturity of Christ to be developed in them. These are things done in the midst of peoples lives, celebrating the grace and favor of God together, mourning loss and rejoicing over victory together, growing together in the Word, bearing each others burdens, correcting and guiding lives. It is a very hands on position. Essentially, they are the Fathers & Mothers in our family.

Therefore, we want to create an Elder ministry which:

Is modeled after what we see in the epistles to the churches.
Is deeply personal and which is “among” the people.
Is intimately involved in House Church.
Is intimately involved in Sunday Worship service ministries.

Note: Infants, Children's, and, if applicable, Middle school ministries, will have, at the very least, an Elder couple attached to it, if not overseeing it.
Will meet occasionally to pray and seek the Lord for matters which the Staff Pastors cannot take responsibility to make on their own (ie: matters of Doctrine, change to Mission/Vision or financial matters outside the regular budget which could have dramatic effects upon the church).
Will meet once a year to evaluate the Vision, Mission & Values. Elders will only be responsible for one area (ie: House Church, Sunday Worship service ministries, finance team, oversight team [the Board], etc.) based on their gift mix.

Covenant - a commitment to family

We believe in accountability. We believe in stirring up love and good works. We believe in relationship, not superficial, acquaintance relationship, but deep, real, transparent, honest, vulnerable and genuine relationship. We believe in believers supporting their local church with natural, spiritual and financial resources. We believe in spiritual covering and authority for every believer. Yes, we even believe in church discipline when necessary. This is why we believe in Covenant.

Can someone be saved without being in Covenant? Absolutely. Can someone attend the

Sunday Worship service who is not in Covenant? Yes! So, what is Covenant?

Covenant is a agreement and commitment before God and family witnesses, that a person:

Will pursue an ongoing and intimate relationship with God and be held accountable to this by other Covenant believers, primarily in their House Church.
Will pursue holiness in their lifestyle within and outside the church and is willing to be held accountable for this, which includes exhortation and confrontation.
Regularly attend the Sunday Worship service as well as House Church gatherings.
Take an active role in the Sunday Worship service or in their House Church, which can include an official capacity or simply coming All Hands ready to serve.
Will invest in the church through:

Spiritual resources - the exercising of their spiritual gifts for the purpose of edification and growth of the church
Physical resources - including time, natural skills and abilities, etc.
Financial giving (tithe is strongly encouraged)

Will Pastor their Circles.
Will communicate with their House Church Pastors and Elders, or one of the Staff Pastors, if they are struggling with something that might cause them to break Covenant and leave the church (i.e.: not feeling “fed”, feeling discontent, feeling under-used or over-used, not feeling connected).
Will share with their House Church Pastors and Elders, or one of the Staff Pastors, if they feel God may be calling, or has called, them to exit Covenant with us to be moved to another church. In this way, the gather family, as a whole, may celebrate what God is doing in their lives and send them with blessing.

Covenant also includes:•

Agreeing to gather Vision, Mission, Formation & Expression statements•
Agreeing to gather Statement of Faith• Complete Covenant Classes•
Committing to complete CTS

Covenant enables a person to:•

Attend a House Church•
Serve in the Sunday Worship service, House Church and Youth Ministries•
Assume leadership positions

Family Wide Mission & Values

In order for individual ministries within the fellowship to be successful, they must share the
same Values & Mission as the greater family.

Family Wide Mission & Values begin to establish a culture within the fellowship that is felt, experienced, and evidenced no matter where a person serves or “plugs in”.
Family Wide Mission & Values prevent the various ministries of the church from going in all different directions.
Family Wide Mission & Values serve to give us movement together

Sunday Worship

We believe having a day during the week to gather as a whole family in order to celebrate our great God is a great thing. In fact, it's essential to the life of the believer. However, we want to make sure that we honor our values even as we come together to worship. For this reason, we will allow our values to “press on” the structure of our service.
Remembering our Family Values, we will be ruthless with things that threaten Family, Belonging, Transparency, All Hands, Better Together, and Say NO to rush hour! We feel the following allow us to do that:

Single service Sunday Worship, rather than multi-service
2 hour gathering
Keeping our service “relatively” small, around 400 Covenant Believers, in order to preserve a sense of family & closeness

Typical Sunday Worship will include:

Worship - relevant, God centered (not me centered), excellent, and free
Family time – prayer, ministry, spiritual gifts shared with each other
Circle Stories – testimonies about God's faithfulness in our circles
Teaching - Engaging, passionate, Biblically sound
Response – opportunity to respond immediately to the Lord's words

We like pretty things :)Everything God has made is creatively beautiful - we want our environments to reflect this. For this reason, we will take great care to honor the fact that the look and feel of our gathering spaces has an effect on us. We will use this to our advantage in order to create environments that draw people in and allow them to relax and feel “at home”.

Bible

We believe the Bible, under the instruction/illumination of the Holy Spirit, is God’s primary method of communicating truth about Himself and about humanity. It is the primary source of instruction for the life of a follower of Jesus. For this reason, it is our teaching source for our gatherings. In addition, we believe the whole counsel of God’s Word is essential for the follower of Jesus to ingest, to know, and to follow. Therefore, the bulk of our teaching will be expository, studying book by book through the entire Bible.

House Church

One of the key components to gather is House Church. In House Church, believers are treated to family, to food, to an opportunity to dig deeper into God's Word, to discover and practice Spiritual Gifts, to receive and offer accountability, support and friendship as well as having a whole team behind you as you Pastor Your Circles. Sounds good, doesn't it? We think this is what God had in mind for His family. Each House Church will have:

A Pastoral couple – responsible for teaching
An Elder couple – responsible for oversight
Together, these two couples will provide leadership, mentoring and spiritual counseling to the House Church they are responsible for.
Instead of having a small pastoral team responsible for caring for the needs of a large number of people, Covenant Believers now have leaders in and among their lives who are easily accessible.
et location – host home which is consistent and comfortable
Set time and day of the week – based on the availability of the Pastoral & Elder couples along with the Host Home.

Youth Ministry

Though we fully believe we are Better Together, we also know that today's youth still need age sensitive opportunities to gather with their peers and grow in the Lord together. It is our full intention to create:

Midweek Youth Ministry for both Middle School & High School ages by the time we Hard Launch.
Youth Ministry which is built around our Family Wide Mission and Values.
Excellent, engaging and relevant ministry

Leadership Development

We are always on the lookout for lay & vocational leaders to raise up. Family wide, we will

always be seeking to identify and train up next gen, current gen, and “old” gen leaders.

Vocational leaders are those who could be Staff Pastors serving in roles like Campus Overseer, Discipleship, Preaching & Teaching, Youth Ministry, Worship.
Lay Leaders are those who are being raised up to be Elders, House Church Pastors, Sunday Worship ministry leaders
A comprehensive “internship” program will be developed specifically for each Vocational and Lay Leadership Position
A Church Planting Residency program will be developed for in-house and guest prospective church planters.

The Word "Church"

At some point church, and the building they met in, became synonymous. This is tragic because the word “church” has come to mean a service where one hears about God, sings some songs, and then goes back home. This is absolutely NOT what the church is. The Church is the living, organic, holy and sanctified body of Christ, past, present and future, made up of every believer in Christ. It is NOT a building or a service. There is no substitute for meeting with the assembly of believers, called the Church. We want believers to understand that “church” is not a place they go or a thing they attend, but is something they ARE.
For this reason, we want to decentralize the church focus away from a building and into homes and communities. We will have a central place to meet and worship on Sundays and other special days, but the building will not be focused on, maybe not even owned by the church. Offices for Staff Pastors might not be located at the same place we meet for the Sunday Worship service – We would rather invite people to “Sunday Worship” than to “church".

"At Gather Strong Church, OUR MISSION IS TO LEAD PEOPLE TO HAPPINESS"

About Who We Are

Mission

Expression -

Formation

This website is currently under construction.