CORE VALUES

LOVING JESUS AND THOSE HE CREATED

At the Vine we are all about Jesus, He is our passion, focus and hearts affection. Jesus is not just a great moral teacher or movement leader but God become flesh. (Colossians 1:15-20) As the God/Man, Jesus lived a perfect life and was unjustly murdered on a cross. He is the only perfect sacrifice capable of forgiving sin, evil and injustice while at the same time providing the righteousness need by all. His loving sacrifice brings a relationship with God, forgiveness of sin, redemption, justification, adoption, healing, cleansing, salvation, life, and joy to those who trust in Him. We desire to intimately know and deeply love Jesus. Our desire is to image Jesus by reflecting and modeling his character and conforming into his image. The Vine Church belongs to Jesus since it was purchased by his blood and therefore he is primary in all we are and do as a church.

Truth

All truth belongs to God as the author and creator of everything. We grow to understand truth as we study what God reveals to us, from creation to Scripture. God’s primary source of revelation is found in the incarnate Christ and his written word, the Bible. The Scriptures are man’s highest authority, our ultimate source of truth and life transformation. Jesus claimed that the Bible is ultimately about Him as the one true God. (John 5:39). God the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible’s human authors to write God’s words. That being the case, the Bible is what we preach, teach and learn from as we follow Jesus Christ.

Authentic Growth

We as a church desire to be honest and authentic people. Therefore, we understand our church will look and feel very raw and messy. It’s our desire to have the heart of the tax collector in Luke 18, “Standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ” We have learned that it’s never beneficial to pretend everything perfect when things are difficult and heavy. Therefore, we will individually and as a church strive for real, honest and passionate relationships with Jesus Christ. As a result, honest personal assessment, scripture reading and meditation, prayer and repentance of sin are essential parts of our church. We understand that these disciplines gain us no extra acceptance or love from God, that is given completely and freely through the cross of Christ. We do these things from hearts of gratitude desiring to know our Savior more fully and deeply.

Community

God never intended His children to live in isolation. His desire is for Christians to belong to a church, a local group of Christians intimately living life together, a place where we can know and be known by others. Christian community is where we can be loved, challenged, instructed, disciplined and encouraged towards a more passionate relationship with God through Christ. One of our desires is for people to understand their unique relationship inside Christ’s church, local and universal, as well as to join a community group.

Missional Witness

Jesus expects us, His church, to be His missionaries and ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20). To preach, teach and live His good news and make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20). Our desire is to build intentional relationships, where the gospel of Jesus is spoken and modeled. We also desire to teach the church what it means to be on mission, sharing the good news of Christ in the relationships God grants us. We will do this by following the example of Paul (1 Cor. 9:19-23), who was willing to give up his personal preferences and use cultural similarities as an avenue to build relationships for gospel change. We view it a privilege to be used by God to see lives changes by the gospel of Jesus.

JUSTICE

We desire that God’s Word would not only be something we study but something we live (James 1:22). Christ tells us in the Scripture and through example to care for those in need, those hurting spiritually and physically. A strong focus of The Vine is to help hurting people, doing what we can physically and pointing them to Christ who can heal spiritually.