Each of Living Stone’s Values serves as a filter through which we evaluate everything. This is one of five posts which will briefly explain each of the values which undergird everything we do.
Gospel Centered
The first church planter in the history of Christianity, the Apostle Paul, once wrote about his focus when planting a new church in Corinth. He said, “I decided to know nothing among you, except Christ and him crucified.”
When Paul wanted to start a church, he had one focus. He wanted people to hear the good news of Jesus. That is what the word ‘Gospel’ means – good news. He wanted them to see the power of the good news of Jesus. He wanted people to place their faith in the good news of Jesus.
At Living Stone, we want to follow Paul’s lead. We want people to hear, see, and have faith in the good news of Jesus. Our church, our leaders, and our people will fail, but the good news of Jesus never will. Therefore, we want everyone who comes to Living Stone to put their faith in Jesus, not our church.
So we put the good news of Jesus at the center of everything.
You will hear the good news in our speech. After Jesus fulfilled his mission, dying on the cross and raising from the dead to secure eternal life, he taught some believers how to interpret the Bible. He said to them, everything in the Bible is about the good news of what I have done. At Living Stone, you won’t hear much political commentary. You won’t hear systematic defenses of our secondary and tertiary theological commitments. You will hear about the good news of Jesus. A lot.
At one of our community dinners, a church member commented that they were afraid to come to church for a long time, because they did not want to be judged for all the ways they fall short of how awesome Jesus was. This person also said, “That is not what we found here.” They found no judgment at Living Stone, because the culture of our church revolves around the grace of God for sinners like us. At Living Stone, you will experience a culture centered on the good news of Jesus.
And all of this goes back to our desire for people. We want everyone to put their faith in the grace and awesomeness of Jesus. We don’t want to tell you how awesome Christians like us are, because we are not really that awesome. We don’t want to point out and constantly remind you how much you fall short of being awesome, because your story doesn’t stop with your sin. We center everything on the good news of Jesus, and we pray you will put your faith and trust in the good news of how awesome he is to love people like us.
