vision for summer church

here's the mission statement for "Reconciliation"

Reconciliation is a missional community sharing, showing, and living out the gospel.

and an explanation...

Missional Community – Two elements to this thing. We are a community of redeemed people, which means so much. Community has been insightfully defined as the place where the person you least want to live always lives. Yancy says, “Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.” As the community of Christ, we love and serve one another sacrificially. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples” (Jn. 13:34). This is the love that the people of God are called to – loving like Christ loved. This means that we lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in the church – literally loving them as if they were our own family. This will be difficult, but I believe that by the Holy Spirit’s power, God can form a deep, loving, and authentic community of people in Reconciliation.
The second aspect of this – missional – is inherent both in the nature of the God and the nature of community. To be missional means that we view our context (where we live, play, work, etc.) from a missionary standpoint, embracing the Great Commission of Jesus and obeying his command to be sent into the world (Jn. 20:21). “God is a missionary God, and God’s primary missionary method is his covenant people,” writes Tim Chester. We see God reaching out as a missionary to humanity first through Israel – a community. Now, we see God reaching out through the church. And this is what Jesus said, as mentioned above – “By this [your love for one another, i.e. community] all men will know that you are my disciples.” The community God creates in the church is a missional community – it must be. Therefore, we don’t have community for community’s sake. We must share this community with others, and our focus has to be on carrying to message and love of God to all the places that we go.

Sharing – We share the gospel through proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to those we come in contact with. This goes hand in hand with showing the gospel, but it is more important. If we really love those like Jesus did, we will be concerned with both their physical needs and their spiritual needs. Since spiritual needs are more important and last forever, sharing the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus is of utmost importance. Sharing the gospel means making disciples, not just converts. It is in obedience to the Great Commission Jesus gave just before he ascended to heaven – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Mt. 28:18-20).

Showing – We show the gospel through our actions – how we serve and reach out to those in need. Not only does Jesus die for our sins, he also heals the sick and reaches out to the poor, providing for physical needs as well as spiritual. Over and over again God commands us in his Word to care for the poor, orphaned, widowed, needy, and helpless. Showing the gospel means bringing physical and tangible healing into places of brokenness. Reconciliation Church will seek to show the gospel to the city of Salem, making it so that the city and the neighborhood are improved because of the work we do.

Living out – We live out the gospel by growing in holiness – walking in our identity as redeemed children of God. Christ has died for us so that we might live for him and become conformed to his image. Therefore, the Reconciliation community will grow in obedience and live out a life marked by the gospel of Jesus. Instead of having to obey God out of compulsion because of religion, we get to obey God out of joy because of grace. We grow up in our spiritual walk to become conformed to the image of Christ, taking on the perfect characteristics of the Jesus that we follow.

The Gospel – Simply put, the gospel is Jesus Christ. Gospel literally means “good news,” and this is the entire theme of the Bible. At its most basic level, the gospel message is that though we as humans are enemies with God, God sent Jesus to die on our behalf. In Jesus’ death, he took upon himself all of our sin and he gave us his righteousness. We gave him our sin and failure; he gave us his righteousness and perfection. This is unmerited grace. Through Jesus, the way was opened for us to come to Jesus by grace through faith, and just as Jesus was resurrected, so we also have the hope that we will one day be resurrected to find ourselves united with Christ. This gospel, Jesus, is the motivation for why we live, the message we proclaim, and the means by which we can actually live out God’s commandments.