MISSION
The Forest Church exists to glorify God by
the maturing of His Church,
through the truthful engagement of His Word
and the power of the Holy Spirit,
so that the real life offered in Christ will spread across the city.
What does this mean?
EXISTS TO GLORIFY GOD…
This is the only reason everything exists.
This is the only reason the stars were flung into existence.
This is why you and I still draw breath.
The Glory of God is the purpose of all things.
So when we think of the church, its Sunday worship service, the preaching, the scripture reading, the ministries, the efforts to help others, we should do it to the Glory of God.
Nothing else on earth is worthy of praise. Nothing else on earth is worth spending our lives on. God is worthy above all else and the church exists for the purpose of pointing this out to everyone who does not know Him. This was the purpose of the Israelite nation in the Old Testament and the purpose of the New Testament church. We are the family of God, meant to display what is wonderous about Him. So in everything we do, we think through whether or not the steps and actions we take are God-glorifying in the best possible way or not.
BY THE MATURING OF HIS CHURCH,
THROUGH THE TRUTHFUL ENGAGEMENT OF HIS WORD
AND THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
SO THAT THE REAL LILFE OFFERED IN CHRIST WILL SPREAD ACROSS THIS CITY.
This sounds interesting to most.
Maturing? Why? What for?
Well first open the Word and look for yourself. There is a reason why Jesus said “Go therefore and make disciples”….not “Go evangelize the world.”
If you are a Christian and God’s promise to you has been to continue to conform you to the image of Christ, and the Apostle Paul tells us that we are going to be increased from One Degree Of Glory To The Next, then we should take the Word of God for what it says and what it means.
The Strife of the Church is really a Maturity issue in its simplest form.
Disunity, sin, leadership failures, affairs, and on and on are truly tied up in a context of people who may be In Christ, but have not been discipled, loved and supported to grow from infancy to maturity In Christ.
Our Union with God is not in question, if we are believers, but at this point the Holy Spirit has given us a new nature and the fleshly things we desire have begun to lessen in their appetite and we become less and less satisfied by them.
Here we often find Christians either trapped in immaturity for years, returning back to the slavery of sin, limping along on their own efforts without real help and support support, finding sobriety in God at points, or we find Christians that have been guided to walk forward, helped by those more mature to be lovingly aided as any child should so that they have a safe environment to grow up in. Just as God’s plan for discipleship is the Family structure, so the same is true in the corporate church world…it’s just less “cookie-cutter” when we really deal with it as God calls us to.
If you’ve ever had children, you know Maturity doesn’t happen over night. Truth be told we all know this. Age DOES NOT equal maturity. God matures us in our relationship through our participation in that intimacy and relationship. Remember, you didn’t grow from a baby to an adult overnight. So the real difference between outward-focused, healthy and balanced Christians and those that sit in pews and do nothing else, is maturity, maturity, maturity.
It takes the Truthful Engagement Of The Word.
It takes the authentic and messy Family. It takes difficulty and trial. It takes time.
And it ultimately takes the Holy Spirit.
This is a work of God in the life of the people of God, and He Will Do it.
But the quickness and power of the maturity largely comes down to the faithfulness of the leaders in place to face their people with the process and means God has laid out in His Word and Example.
Maturing is hard. It is unsexy. Sometimes when people are growing up they act like a toddler and throw a tantrum….sometimes they act like a teenager and walk out of the house.
But if someone is purchased by the blood of Jesus, then they will keep conforming to His image over time and HE WILL KEEP THEM.
The problem people often run into in the place they call their “church home”, is that instead of it being a place of abundant grace, it acts like a courtroom for judgment. The leadership handles things swiftly and immaturely and not according to the Word. So in direct relationship we see people leave “home” and never come back.
The hard truth of Shepherding and leading is you are the servants to those who are in the flock. The people, as God’s children must be met with the grace of God that looks like the same grace that motivated Him to die on the cross for their sins.
The Family of God should have the Tact of Christ, not the Tact of your local civil district court system.
To grow into maturity they need the body!
They need the abundant grace of the Family coupled with the Truth, so that they see the Compassion of a Savior and the Righteousness of His Character married into one.
We have had to humble ourselves to acknowledge that people aren’t robots. People are complex, have backgrounds, and have sin. We have had to see and acknowledge that the the Lord has matured us, the only difference between our standing before God and those immature in the church is the Grace of Jesus, not our actions of maturity on the other side of Salvation.
So we stay faithful and committed to disciple - really disciple - those who have come to faith in Christ.
We meet in grace, guide in truth, and give the family necessary for them to belong, be valued and grow in the knowledge of Christ that they might conform to the His Image more and more.
This is the mission of the church after all.
To present her as more sanctified and life giving than when we found her. To perpetuate the image of God which was the failed mission of Adam but the completed mission of Christ.
And we are about this as the Word says we should be. And it is here that God the Holy Spirit carries along his Work to convict, conform and create life in the every day person.