Statement of Identity

We are a Christian community committed to:
WORSHIP ... PRAYER ... FELLOWSHIP ... SERVICE ... WITNESS
that we may grow in the knowledge and love of God,
and be more able to fulfil our part in the mission of the whole church.

Worship:
The building is the place and the community is the context within which we worship. Twice each Sunday, worship is offered through our presence, the gifts we express, through prayer, preaching and praise. In worship all our diversity finds a unifying focus in the God who is Father, Son and Spirit, whom we love because he first loved us. We are committed to worship because worship is the proper response of the human heart to the God who has created, redeemed and renewed us, and called us into fellowship with each other.

Fellowship:
Fellowship is not friendship, though it includes that; it is not congenial company though every Christian community has its peer groups; it is not a word describing warm feelings or ‘nice times’. Fellowship is commitment to the Christian community because we are committed to Christ; to love and serve Christ is to love and serve the church, his visible body. Fellowship means we share privileges and responsibilities, the twin callings in Christian discipleship. Fellowship is nurtured by the shared commitments of worship, prayer, service and witness; to be a community committed to fellowship is to be committed to each other for Jesus’s sake.

Service:
Worship, prayer and fellowship are prevented from becoming selfish, inward looking and pious pastimes by the outflow into service of  the life of the Christian community.  Christian service is offered as our practical response to the love of God, and as the outworking of our discipleship.  We are committed to service the life of the church in order to fulfil our part in the Body of Christ; and we are committed to service beyond the church and into the world, to fulfil or mission as bearers of the ‘good news’ and embodiers of Christ. 

Prayer:
Prayer is not only something we do, it is the atmosphere in which we are called to live.  Prayer is the enjoyment of relationship with God, the acknowledgement of the presence of God, the articulation of need in the presence of God, and in intercession it is the Christian contribution to the reconciliation, healing and redemption of the world.  We are committed to prayer because prayer is the way we seek to bring our wills as individuals, and our life as a community, into line with the will of God.

Witness:
We are committed to bearing witness to Christ who is the Saviour of the world, who is Lord of the Church and to whom we have committed our lives in response to the Gospel.  Such witness is borne by the words we speak, the lifestyle we model, the people we are and the kind of community we present to outsiders.  The purpose of witness is to commend the God whose love is made known in Christ that others may come to believe in Christ and, believing, might have life.  Thus they will become part of the people of God, called to be a Community whose life is replenished by Worship, Prayer and Fellowship and whose life is then expressed in Service and Witness.