This week’s blog we will talk about “The AND statements” of Cross-Work church. Let’s get into it.
These are the why we do the things we do, and even why we don’t do some things. We call these “The And Statements”. Here’s the list:
1. We will be theologically sound AND culturally relevant.
2. We will know others AND be known.
3. We will meet needs AND proclaim Jesus.
4. We will be missionaries AND ministers.
5. We will do missions AND plant churches.
6. We will invest in relationships AND invite people to church.
It’s not a perfect list and probably not even complete, but at Cross-Work church plant, this is where we begin. Over the next 6 weeks, this blog will discuss each of these six statements. These “And statements” are a result of my 15 years of church experience and personal Bible study. I have seen many churches get locked into one or the other, but the best churches find a way to do both. Hopefully this will make more sense as we get into it.
This week we will weigh in on being a church that is “theologically sound AND culturally relevant”. This is our way of starting with the greatest commandments . When asked what the most important commandments was, Jesus basically told people to love God and love people. We start with sound theology to ensure we are loving the actually God of the Bible and not something else. Our priorities start with a right view of God and work to people from there.
When we say culturally relevant we mean that we will speak to the issues of culture from a Biblical perspective. We recognize that the issues that our culture faces can be difficult and confusing. I have seen people who had been in a church for over a decade come face to face with cultural issues but were not equipped with what the Bible says. I watched their little seed of faith get scorched by cultural heat and choked out by weeds of our culture (Matthew 13).
It is vitally important that the people of God know what we believe and how our faith contradicts the secular worldly culture. At Cross-Work church, we call this being “theologically sound AND culturally relevant”.
-Your favorite Church Planter
Mike Watt
