VISION AND VALUES

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We are not who we desire to be.  We are an established congregation that looks pretty much like any other congregation.  Our vision, though, is to become a body that reaches and engages the families that live in Anderson Township.  We want to be a picture here on Earth of what Heaven will be like. The model we are trying to follow is called “Simple Church.” It encourages congregations to strive to perform with quality the ministries they do, but not try to do or be everything for everybody. It allows flexibility for serving God. We aren’t there just yet, but the goal is for each member to be free and encouraged to minister from their own gifts and talents as God leads them.

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Our ministry plan will look a lot like an apprenticeship program.  The apprentice is the one who is just coming to KNOW God and learning about Him.  As he/she GROWs, he/she moves into a journeyman roll where he/she is putting what one has learned into practice.  As one gains maturity and proficiency, he/she becomes the master and starts the process over in someone else by SHOWing them God and teaching them how to follow Jesus.

 

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To KNOW God intimately

We use worship times to achieve this goal. It is our hope that through each other, worship, the Word, prayer and serving that we will find ourselves in the presence of our Father, God. We use fairly traditional elements of worship currently because that is the talent pool we have, but we are open to expanding the means we use to encounter God.

 

Our worship gatherings are primarily geared to believers because that is who we are currently, but we do try to provide a relevant application to non-believers as well. Singing and prayer will help to usher us into the presence of God while the preaching is drawn from God’s Word and made relevant, useful, and alive to the normal person. It is our hope that we would truly encounter God, that His name would be made great, and that we wouldn’t be the same people we were before we came.

 

To GROW with God continuously

We are a group that is searching for more to life. For many of us, this is the search for hope, love and wholeness. For believers, this is the desire to go beyond surface level Christianity and into a deeper walk with Christ through discipleship. Regardless of where you are in the search, we believe that more can only truly be found in the deep and unconditional embrace of God.

 

To achieve the desired depth of discipleship, we use Bible study for all ages. Each Sunday morning there is a time for age appropriate study of God’s word. We also employ Life Groups which meet at other times during the week and usually at other locations. The Life Groups have a different dynamic. One of the groups is for the women of the church, W.O.W. (Women Of the Word). They meet monthly for a lunch and weekly when they are doing a study. Other life groups have been open to anyone that wanted to participate and meet at a frequency decided upon by that group.

 

Sunday evening is a more casual study where we are trying to get back to what the Bible teaches rather than just relying on the Sunday school stories from our early days. It is often marked by lively discussions and the realization that we don’t have all the answers and that we can admit we don’t know all the answers.

We use special events like Vacation Bible School to teach the children that God loves them and He’s not out to get them. Every week we have lessons prepared for them on a level they can connect with.

 

To SHOW God to others faithfully

Our desire is to be a people that would give hope and compassion to the sick, broken & hurting. 1st Baptist is a family where one can be transparent and know that regardless of who there are or where they've been, they are welcome here. We are all broken people; that is why we need God, that is what gives us our purpose and meaning.

 

We use many vehicles to show God’s love to the people we encounter in our lives, such as:

       various community events

       monthly free community lunch

       Here's Hope (cancer counseling ministry)

       Helping Hands (benevolence aid for those in need)

       or whatever God leads us to do

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                                                               – A message from First Baptist Church of Anderson Hills