A blueprint for a thriving church
We are called to be a thriving church!
The vision of our family of churches is to be thriving churches, advancing the kingdom. We want to be churches that are characterised by thriving!
Thriving community life: Churches that are fun to be a part of, where relationships are characterised by love, care, and commitment. Churches where men and women, young and old, of a variety of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are growing as disciples of Jesus and using their God-given gifts to serve one another.
Thriving devotional life: Churches with Spirit-filled worship and passionate prayer, and a deep commitment to Scripture. Churches that embody Christ-like values of humility, integrity, generosity, and grace.
Thriving missional life: Churches where people can explore questions of faith and experience God's life-changing power, and which regularly see people become followers of Jesus. Churches that look beyond themselves, seeking to multiply the life of God through planting churches and reaching the lost.
God is specifically calling Lifehouse Community Church into a season of thriving, growing in devotion to Jesus and to one another, and growing in number as we step out and testify to what God has done in our lives.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
The blueprint
In Acts 2 we see a 'blueprint’ of what a thriving church looks like. Luke, the writer of Acts, describes a church community living radically differently to the culture they found themselves in. We see wholehearted devotion to God and one another, lived out through generosity, fellowship and worship. And through all of this the Holy Spirit is working powerfully through signs and wonders, and bringing people to salvation.
We've drawn out seven key indicators of a thriving church from the passage, which we'll be exploring over the course of the series:
Covenant community
Communion
Signs and wonders
Generosity
Hospitality
Worship
Mission
Why a blueprint?
When you're building a house, you build to the blueprint. In the same way, as we build Lifehouse Community Church we want to make sure we have these same seven characteristics as the church community in Acts.
As you are building, you check against the blueprint to see whether you're building correctly - is it level? Are the measurements correct? We're asking ourselves these questions for each topic, to help us 'measure up' against the blueprint:
Where are we living up to the Acts 2 blueprint?
Where are we falling short?
What steps do we need to take to come back into line?
So join us as we explore Acts 2 and step into a new season of thriving together.