Mission
Our mission is to multiply gospel-centered disciples and churches to be worshipers who delight in Christ, witnesses who declare His cross, and servants and family who display His love.
5 Core Identities
We are worshippers so we live to delight in Christ
We are worshipers of God who have responded to His call to worship by living for His glory. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we are able to please God through living every day as an act of worship. We’re not perfect people, we are forgiven people, which is why we worship. Worship is a whole-life response to who God is. (Romans 12:1; John 4:23-24; Hebrews 10:1) We prioritize gathering as a church to sing, pray and learn from God’s Word on Sundays, and throughout the week for prayer and spiritual formation.
We are witnesses so we labor to declare His cross
We witness to the truth about Jesus, and that God still changes lives through the gospel. We are sent by God to restore all things to Himself, through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is expressed through equipping our people for God’s mission to make disciples and our commitment to partnering to plant more churches nationally and internationally. Jesus has sent out His church on His mission (John 20:21; Acts 1:8). For us this primarily means being loving neighbors and engaging the people who live around us in hopes that they might come to know God through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14; 20:21; Colossians 1:19; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
We are family so we display His love to one another
God created the church to be a family. Jesus calls us to love one another as he has loved us (John 13:34). It is easy for us to forget the church is a body, not a building. We are a people, not a place. God designed us to take part in rich community. So we are given the ability to not only be in a relationship with God, but through Jesus Christ we are a part of a new family. We no longer relate to one another based on our ethnicity, or education, or work. Rather, we connect with one another in soul-satisfying community because we are primarily and spiritually connected through Jesus. (Genesis 12:1-3; John 1:12-13; Romans 12:10-16; Philippians 4:4-5).
We are servants so we display His love to our neighbors
We are not created to serve our own self-interest. We were created to serve God and others. Jesus himself models what a true servant looks like. Although he is God, Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). Since Jesus came not be served, but to serve we also seek to deny our ourselves and live for the glory of God and good of others (Luke 9:23-24). By God’s grace, we seek to serve Defiance and the world in the name of Jesus.
We are disciples so we learn to follow Christ from Scripture.
A disciple is a student who learns from another. We are disciples who are learning from Scripture how to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. We believe Christianity is a rigorous, thoughtful pursuit of God. We study the Bible to grow in knowledge that leads to a deeper joy in knowing and obeying Jesus. So we aim to be disciples who want to know God as a person–a person who has revealed Himself to us so that we might know Him. (Luke 2:52; Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 4:11-13; 2 Timothy 2:2)