Driving Value #1
The Supremacy of Christ – the Heart of Worship
We start with a passion to put Jesus first in everything. It is our ultimate aim at Northshore to treasure Jesus above all else. He is our Lord and Savior. Centering all of life on Him is the heartbeat of what it means to be a Christian. The Supremacy of Christ shapes who we are, what we do, why we do it and how we do it. His name is our brand. His supremacy must never be merely assumed. We can never emphasize too much His role as our atoning sacrifice. His substitutionary death on the cross cancelled the terrifying burden of debt we all owe to the perfect justice of God. And because of His resurrection, Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord. He is the Risen Lord of the Church, and He is the Risen Lord of our lives.
We see Jesus Christ as Savior, Redeemer, Reconciler, Justifier, Liberator, and Pardoner. But most importantly, He is first our only Lord and Master! He is worthy to be treasured above all else. It is this first-priority value—the supremacy of Christ—that keeps us from jumping on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest ideas for doing church. When the Christian industries attempt to market their latest products to us, we have a superb sorting device: we ask “What is our Lord Jesus saying to us?” He is the King. If we haven’t heard from Him, we wait UNTIL He speaks.
Driving Value #2
Community – the Heart of God
Community flows from the Trinity—the relational structure of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit existing in eternal oneness. It is because God himself is the original community that His creation of humanity contains this fundamental relational design. When the people of our world are invited into the life-transforming community of Jesus, they have arrived home. The family of God is the relational epicenter of all human communities. The love of God, flowing from the indwelling Spirit of God, creates the health and wholeness of the Christ-centered community we were created to enjoy. The inevitable consequence of sin’s self-centeredness is alienation and isolation.
In his insightful little book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes about the aloneness of Hell. He accurately captures the anti-relational direction of the soul that has broken away from God’s reign.1 The terrible fact is that people who don’t follow Jesus destroy their relationships. They don’t intend to. It’s just what self-focus does. The gospel and good news of Jesus Christ is that God’s costly love has opened up a way for us all to join an eternal, life-restoring community.
Followers of Christ are interdependent. We each possess gifts of the Spirit that the others need. We build each other up in the faith. We bear each other’s burdens: we serve one another in love. We speak the truth in love. We work out our salvation in the context of the people of God. Our change process is embedded in theirs. In authentic Christ-centered and Christ-treasuring community, the longing of all people for lasting trustworthy relationships can be met. As we get nurtured back to a true and lasting spiritual health, we begin to add our part to the relational paradise of God. The church community becomes a powerful attraction, a true taste of heaven, to a broken world around us who longs for community but who doesn’t know how to truly pursue it.
Driving Value #3
Transformation – the Heart of Change
When we asked ourselves the questions, “What is Jesus after?” and, “What does He want?” we know the answer. He wants us. He accepts us the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us the way we are. He changes us! Every life that surrenders to the life-changing Lordship of Jesus Christ changes first in affection and direction. That choice to turn and to re-direct our affections is called repentance. A repentant heart under the new management of the Holy Spirit is drawn into the love of God and changed into Christ’s likeness.
As the chronic self-love and self-focus of our former independence drops away, a new outward flow of life begins. When people re-center themselves relationally in Christ everything begins to change. It’s as though a spring has welled up within their inner being. An inexhaustible supply of love flows out of the Spirit of Jesus living within. The impossible truly happens. The hardest and most supernatural miracles occur. Pride melts. Humility flourishes. Greed gives way to generosity, and deceit gives way to truth. Love wins. Christ-likeness, the ultimate makeover, is the marvelous result of the transformation process instigated by the Spirit. And in that transformation, we treasure more and more the surpassing beauty and glory of Jesus Christ.
Every ministry in a local church must be measured by what it contributes to transformation. The most practical way to measure transformation is relationships. The New Testament keeps us right on target. As the apostle Paul said it, “the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart” (1 Timothy 1:5).
Driving Value #4
Mission – the Heart of Outreach
Healthy churches grow. Transformation is attractive and contagious. When Jesus and His love are lifted up He draws people to Himself. It happens naturally and spontaneously. But it must also happen intentionally. Mission is a command from our sovereign Lord. He has commanded us to go into the entire world and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8). The Bible makes it clear that although a church is an organization and a structured community, it is also a living organism. It is a body with many parts, Christ himself being the head of the body. It is the nature of living things to produce after their kind. If they do not, they face extinction.
The church of Jesus Christ is no exception. It has within it a life force of reproduction. It is designed to produce after its kind. Mission, as we currently understand it, has at least four parts:
1. Multiplying followers
2. Multiplying leaders
3. Multiplying churches
4. Multiplying church-planting movements
Multiplication of followers is the result of giving ourselves away in friendship to the people within our immediate life circle. We simply love them and serve them. As they get to know us they wonder what makes us tick. They ask questions. (“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” I Peter 3:15). As they hear our faith stories and see transformation in our lives many of them are drawn to become Christ followers themselves, and we show them how to begin with surrender and faith.
Multiplication of leaders is accomplished by encouraging every Christian to maximize his or her natural and spiritual gifts. As they personally obey the Spirit and serve their fellow Christians, their leadership abilities become evident. People recognize leaders and follow them. As the existing leaders see new leaders emerging, they encourage, train, mentor and coach them. Leaders are gifts from Jesus (Ephesians 4:11-13); they are invaluable and must be treasured. They must also be released to facilitate the final focus of mission.
Multiplication of churches is completely dependent on the multiplication of leaders. In church planting, leadership is everything. It is painful to release high potential leaders from the sending church community. They are friends. They are highly effective where they are already serving. But if the parent church has embraced the Supremacy of Christ and His mission, it will willingly give away its emerging and developing leaders.
Multiplication of church-planting movements. Our intentional hope and expectation is that our church plants will be committed to church multiplication that will reproduce church multiplying churches… and on and on and on. It will be an adventure of a lifetime as they catch the flow of what God’s Spirit is doing in the world—partnering with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ and joining Him in building the Kingdom of God by expanding His church until He returns again.
1C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2001)
