Vision 2025—More about our values.
Earlier this week, I was in Beaverton at a conference. For the first couple of days, I used Apple Maps to get around town from my hotel to the conference venue. On the last day of the conference, I felt good about navigating the area we were in, so I ditched the GPS. Upon leaving my hotel that morning, it only took me three turns to get lost.
I turned the wrong direction onto a main road. You know that movie scene when someone falls into a raging river and begins flailing in the water as they are swept down the river, grasping for anything that might save them from being swept over the waterfall? That’s how it felt. I’m caught in morning commute traffic, and I’m trying to figure out where I had gone wrong and where I could turn around and get headed back in the right direction. Eventually, I crossed traffic, made a U-turn in some parking lot, and righted my route to the conference venue.
I feel like the church is in a similar place these days. We have taken some wrong turns and we are caught in this current that threatens to sweep us into a place where we are ineffective, into a place where we are no longer relevant, into a place where we are no longer effectively reaching people with the gospel and where we are no longer raising up people who are wholeheartedly, absolutely, no holds barred, living their lives for Christ. Instead of being effective, the church has found itself dealing with scandals almost daily.
That is why we must constantly ask ourselves and the leadership of our churches: What are we doing? Where are we headed? Where are we devoting our resources? What is important to us, and how are we doing the things that we say are important?
A couple of weeks ago, we started a conversation that answers those questions. The conversation began with this verse from Proverbs:
Prov 29:18 (CSB)—Without revelation, people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.
In other words, when we don’t have God’s vision for our lives, families, and churches, we run directionless. The KJV says we perish. But when we understand God’s heart for us, as it is revealed in the Bible, we find direction, fulfillment, and joy.
So what is God’s vision for New Hope? We started this conversation a couple of weeks ago, so let me review what we’ve already covered.
We begin to understand His vision for us by asking this question: Why do we exist?
We exist to know God and glorify Him by making disciples of Jesus Christ.
We start that statement with knowing God because the one thing God wants from you is to know you. And we end that statement with Jesus’ instruction to the church when He gives them the Great Commission. His commission to us is to make disciples of all nations. That is the work He has given us to do.
Our purpose statement answers the question, “Why do we exist?” The second question we then ask is, “What is important to us?”
Is it a bigger building a bigger budget, or greater influence? The answer is no.
There is nothing wrong with bigger buildings, budgets, and influence. Those things can undoubtedly help us accomplish our purpose, but ultimately, they are only tools in the toolbox.
Buildings, money, and influence will all go away, but the thing that will endure is the impact we have through our relationships. Our love for God and our love for people are the two things that will endure.
Instead of building a bigger church, we want to build bigger people.
How do we do that? We can identify what is important to us by naming the things that God has said will help us build bigger people, things that will help us know Him and make disciples of Jesus Christ.
How does New Hope name “What is important to us?” We have chosen to call what is important to us our four values.
Identity
Formation
Community
Mission
We discussed our first value, identity, a couple of weeks ago.
Identity
If you weren’t here for that you can go back and listen to that message by going to newhopeon395.com and click on message archive. Also, I haven’t mentioned this in a while, you can go to chrishankel.com and subscribe and you will get the message transcript in your email each week.
Understanding our identity in Christ requires understanding who we are because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
Our second priority is Community.
We are created to have a relationship with our Heavenly Father and others in the Body of Christ.
Community is written into our DNA. Have you ever heard of the still face experiment?
In the 1970’s Dr. Edward Tronick did an experiment on social interaction. He had a mother sit across from her 8 month old baby and for two minutes she smiled and cooed and really interacted with her baby. The baby responded by laughing and smiling and talking back to it’s mother. Then the Dr. had her stop interacting and just face the baby with a still face. Within 2 minutes of the mother ceasing interaction, her baby has an absolute meltdown.
From birth, we are wired for connection. Disconnection has a significant impact on us. We all need a tribe. We all need connection. For the followers of Jesus, we need people around us who will help point us toward Jesus.
All followers of Christ are part of the body of Christ. The body is Paul’s illustration of our relationships with others in the church.
Look at what Paul says:
1 Cor 12:12-14 (CSB)—For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body — so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free — and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Indeed, the body is not one part but many.
Baptism symbolizes a couple of things. First, it symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And second, symbolizes how we have been baptized into, immersed into, grafted into, and adopted into the community of followers of Jesus.
1 Cor 12:26–27 (CSB)—So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.
Here, Paul reminds us of our importance in the Body of Christ. He says there is not a single part of the body that can cease being a part of the body and the body not suffer. It doesn’t matter how big or how small the body part.
In a physical body, if you remove the liver, what happens? The body suffers. It will eventually die. What happens to the liver without the body? It dies!
If you follow Jesus, you are a part of the Body of Christ. What happens to the Body if you are not connected to the rest of the Body? What will happen to you? The body needs you and you need the body.
Unfortunately, in our culture, relationships tend to be transactional. In other words, relationships are based on what we can do for one another. I will love you if … or I will be your friend as long as … And if a relationship is no longer producing what I want or need, it ceases to be important and sometimes ceases to exist.
But God’s way of doing relationship is not transactional. God’s love described in Jn 3:16 is unconditional.
Jn 3:16 (CSB)—For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
His love does not depend upon us. This is what the value of Community ought to look like for us. Community ought to be characterized by relationships that aren’t disposable. We don’t walk away when someone makes us mad or miscommunicates with us, or says something that hurts us.
And when the rest of the world sees these kinds of relationships happening, they want it. We all spend our lives looking for people who will love us unconditionally, people who will see our warts and our imperfections and will still accept us and be there for us when we fall down and celebrate with us in our victories.
Jesus put it this way:
Jn 13:35 (CSB)—By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful – Christian community is the final apologetic.
—Francis Schaeffer
Our third value is:
Formation
The inescapable truth is that we are all becoming someone. Every one of us is in the process of becoming someone. The question is, who are we becoming?
Formation is the process of intentionally allowing God to change my heart and my life.
God’s vision for us is that we who follow Jesus become more like Jesus.
2 Cor 3:17-18 (CSB)—Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Are you accidentally or intentionally becoming someone?
Accidental Formation looks like this:
Stories I Believe + My Relationships + Habits x My Environment = Accidental Formation
Intentional Formation looks like this:
Teaching + Community + Life-Giving Spiritual Habits x Holy Spirit = Intentional Formation
Life-giving spiritual habits:
- Learning to do the things Jesus did—Lk 9:23
- Reading and Studying God’s Word—2 Tim 3:16-17
- Praying and Listening for His Voice—1 Kings 19:12
- Showing Biblical Hospitality—Lk 19:1-10
- Practicing Sabbath, Silence, and Solitude—Mk 1:35-38
- Worshiping and Celebrating—Lk 15
- Practicing Generosity and Gratitude—2 Cor 9:11-12
- Learning to share your story with others—1 Ptr 3:15
Sunday morning at New Hope is a great place to be, and my hope is that what we do here on Sunday helps you grow in your walk with Jesus. However, Sunday morning cannot be the sum total of your spiritual formation.
I could show you how to cast a fly rod. I could tell you the best flies to use. I could even describe my experiences on the river, catching big, beautiful trout. But hearing about my experience is different from having your own experience. I can tell you about the exhilaration of hooking a big fish and the satisfaction of scooping it up in my net, but you will only really understand once you experience it yourself. When you experience it yourself, you can call yourself a fly fisherman.
I can tell you all about Jesus. I can recommend the best books to read. I can describe to you the experiences I’ve had with God. How He has forgiven me, how He is changing me, and what it is like when I can sense His presence. But hearing about my experience is no substitute for your experience.
Until you experience God’s goodness for yourself, you cannot truly know it. Until you discover God on your own and hear His voice for yourself, you are simply living vicariously through someone else’s experience.
Ultimately, we want to equip you to grow in your relationship with Jesus. That is why we value formation. The church’s role in your formation ought to be to provide avenues, resources, and opportunities for you to learn to grow.
It’s the old cliche: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. We want to teach you to fish. We want to teach you to be intentional about allowing God to form your heart.
“Spiritual formation prepares us for a life in which we move away from our fears, compulsions, resentments, and sorrows, to serve with joy and courage in the world, even when this leads us to places we would rather not go. Spiritual formation helps us to see the face of God in the midst of a hardened world and in our own heart. This freedom helps us to use our skills and our very lives to make that face visible to all who live in bondage and fear. As Jesus told his disciples: “So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).”
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Next week we will look at our final value: Mission.
Here are a couple of questions I’d like you to consider:
- How would you characterize your community? Are you a part of a community where people point you toward Jesus? People who are committed to you and you to them?
- Are you intentionally becoming more like Jesus? Are there some things you can do to become more intentional about spiritual formation?
Chris Hankel 
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