Our church vision

"To build glorious churches, holy and blameless, in our generation."

This is the vision of our church, given to us by God and put as best we could into words. If I could unpack that sentence, it would go something like this:

"To build ..."
The Apostle Paul uses the words "edify" and "build up" a lot in his exhortations to believers. He urges them to build up each other and also to build up the church. He says that God builds up the church, and that Jesus is like the foundation or cornerstone of the church. Furthermore, the Apostle Peter says we are all living stones in the church and as we come together, each of us obedient to God's role and calling for our lives, we become a holy temple unto Him.

Churches, like individual lives, require care and nuturing to become strong and mature. Building churches is arduous and takes a long time. In fact, the Bible says that the church will not be perfect until Jesus returns, so we can expect to continue building it until He returns.

" ... glorious churches, holy and blameless ..."
Our goal is the same as Paul's was: to present perfect churches to Christ.

Colossians 1:28-29
"We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me."

2 Corinthians 11:2b
"I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him."

We believe that it is impossible to reach this goal perfection by our own effort, and that we must rely entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit to heal, cleanse, teach, and empower individuals and the corporate church body. Yes, we can plan and work hard as co-laborers with God, but in the end we recognize that it is God who makes the work fruitful. That is why we try to yield fully to the Holy Spirit in our ministry and not try to fit God into a marketing plan or our Sunday service schedule.

We consider the fire of God such an essential aspect of church life and we regularly come to receive fresh impartation and cleansing. Through experience, we know that more can be done to break addictions, restore relationships, and kindle passions in one hour of God's presence than in years of counseling or sitting under the most eloquent preaching.

God is giving our senior pastor, Ps. Lao, tremendous opportunities to spread His fire to other churches and thereby help them reach the fullness of Christ. Like Antioch served as a base for Paul and Barnabas, our church in Seattle sends Ps. Lao out as an apostle (literally, "sent one") to do what God has called him to do.

"... in our generation."
This speaks to the urgency of our work. We want to live purposefully, with a clear aim at the highest goal. We not only want to build a few glorious churches, or many churches that are somewhat glorious, we want to build many churches that are full of the fire of God, completely obedient to Him, and ready to hasten His return. Like Peter, we want to look forward to Jesus' return and speed His coming by making disciples and planting churches. By God's grace, we aim to do it in our generation. We want to turn the world upside down by living fully to do God's will.

So, this is our church vision, brothers and sisters. Take it and make it your own vision!