If someone wants to find out who we are and what we’re all about here at 6th & Gibbs Church, we believe it begins with the gospel message.
What is the gospel? If that question is asked to ten Christians, odds are, we’d probably get ten different answers.
But here at 6th & Gibbs, we believe that the gospel message is the most important message we can share, and we want to be crystal clear in what it means, as well as what we should do in response to hearing it. Because of this, this is how we would answer this important question:
The Gospel is this:
The Kingdom of God is restored through Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Christ, the king, God’s One and only Son. He died on the cross for the sins of the world, was buried, and was resurrected on the third day, fulfilling the Scriptures. By His immeasurable love and grace He has lavished upon humanity, God the Father saves everyone who repents of their sin, believes the Gospel, are immersed, and follows Jesus. A disciple’s allegiance to King Jesus is unconditional, no matter what the cost, without question, and without excuse through the power of the Holy Spirit, advancing His Kingdom Reign before He returns again.*
When we see Jesus for who He truly is, the King of God’s Kingdom, the One we are called to follow, it helps us shape our mission as a church. Jesus invested into the lives of His twelve disciples, and when He ascended, He asked them to make new disciples, teaching them to obey everything He has commanded them, and be His eyewitnesses to the ends of the earth. It is through this that we get our mission:
We’re a church empowering everyone to take their next step towards Jesus.
We want to share this chart with you. It’s a simplified version of what’s called the Engel scale. It was created by a man named James Engel who wrote a book What’s Wrong with the Harvest? back in 1975:
When we say we want to empower people to take their next step towards Jesus, we are saying we want to help everyone become a +5 disciple of Jesus – a Multiplying, Christlike Disciple-maker. And we do that in many ways:
- Telling the -5 coworker you will pray for what they’re struggling with, even though they don’t believe in prayer, and follow up with them the next time you see them.
- Maybe filling your -2 neighbor’s gas tank so they can be with their mother at the hospital across the state.
- Maybe it’s encouraging that -1 parent at your child’s school that they’re ready to follow Jesus and be baptized.
- Or it could be telling the +2 person sitting next to you that you see so much potential in them, and want to ask them to help you lead something or serve others together.
We want everyone, whether they have never made the decision to follow Jesus, or maybe they did years or decades ago, to move closer to Jesus. We are always growing in our faith and our hope is to be the best disciple of Jesus that we can.
And so, the next question would be: what is a disciple?
A disciple is learning to authentically follow King Jesus by abiding in Him and loving others, guiding them to do the same.
We want to follow our King, loving others as we do so, and our hope is that we can help them do the same for others.
Our efforts are based in on the community our church is located: Cottage Grove. Our focus is geographical saturation: Our vision is that everyone in Cottage Grove would know Jesus. Our mission doesn’t end until everyone knows and follows King Jesus.
And I get it. You read that and may think, “I don’t know how you’d begin to do that!” We live in a community of 11,000, where up to 10.000 may not follow Jesus. But our hope is to change our city, one person at a time, and one neighborhood at a time. We all live in various neighborhoods around the town, so what if our mission field is the street we currently live on?
We challenge everyone at the church to find that one person to pray for daily, but not only that, but to love the community where we live, where we work, and where we play. How can we serve those around us? How can be pray for them? Do we see needs we can meet? Can we do a random act of kindness for someone? Pretty much, can we show love to others, the same love Jesus showed to us first?
We see our mission this way: Can we look out into our community, have our eyes wide open to see opportunities to love others, and help them just take that one step closer to Jesus? That’s it. That we are willing to serve, taking an extra step of faith ourselves, while trying to help others take that one extra step towards Jesus.
So if you are interested in joining us on this mission, come join us on a Sunday morning so we can meet you and travel this road of life and faith together as family!
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* (Biblical references for our gospel definition: Matt. 25:31-46, Mark 1:14-17; 8:27-29, John 3:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Cor. 15:1-5, Eph. 1:4-8; 2:8-10)