The Vision of our Church family!

Over the past few years Bonny Downs Church has grown into a small but passionate family of churches.  A few months ago we started a journey of re-discovering our vision by looking at what God is doing among us and through us.  Both Richard (the lead pastor) and I have been working towards preaching through our core vision.  Below is a brief summary of that vision.

We want to see Jesus changing lives, transforming our communities and our world!

1) We want to see JESUS

“Eternal life is to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, the one you sent.” John 17:3  

As a church our primary aim is to see Jesus.  To see who Jesus is, to recognise him as our Saviour, to learn from Him, be inspired, challenged and encouraged by Him.  Together we want our church to be shaped by Jesus as He has revealed Himself in the pages of the Bible.
 
Who He Is
We want to gaze at Jesus who –although He is God- became man for us.  We want to be moved by Jesus love for us, as proved as He poured out His life on the  cross.  We want to marvel and worship our risen and alive Lord Jesus!

What He’s Doing
We want to see Jesus working now to draw all kinds of people to Himself by His grace.  We want to experience a real relationship with Jesus.  We want to witness the restoration that only Jesus can bring.

Seeing Jesus is the aim of all our meetings and messages.  Because knowing and enjoying Jesus is what we were made for. 

2) changing LIVES

“Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person. You were created to be like God, and so you must please him and be truly holy.” Ephesians 4:23-24

Changing Us 
Jesus didn’t live, die and rise again so we could remain the same.  He did it so we can be changed into the people that He made us to be!  Through repenting to God and each other and resting in what Jesus has done for us, we will start to live lives filled with real purpose.

Changing Others 
We believe that the change Jesus brings should be contagious both to people inside and outside the church!  As we serve, welcome and offer the hope Jesus brings we want to see people around us changed too!


3) transforming our COMMUNITIES

“All the Lord's followers often met together, and they shared everything they had…  Everyone liked them, and each day the Lord added to their group others who were being saved.” Act 2:44-47

Loving the Church
One vital gift that Jesus gave us to keep our faith alive is our church family.  We experience our church family through corporate worship on Sundays, smaller home groups during the week and one to one every day.  We love our church because it enables us to know Jesus better, know each other better and be more in number.

Loving our streets 
We believe in being local.  We want to always see the best in our communities and be contagiously positive about the places where we live.  We want to build strong friendships with our neighbors and always be looking for opportunities to meet any local needs to improve local living conditions.

4) and our WORLD

“But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world."” Acts 1:8

Responsibility

When Jesus made humankind he gave us responsibility to care for our world and the people in it.  Therefore we need to be active in caring for Jesus creation and seeking to stop human injustices in all its forms.  Especially when it involves our wider church family suffering persecution.

Workplace
We want to do all things as if we are serving Jesus.  We have great opportunities to serve Jesus and help renew our world by being salt and light in our workplaces.  Not by preaching at our colleagues but by living out Jesus values.

Planting
We want to continue to establish many community focused congregations all committed to knowing and sharing Jesus and loving their own communities.  Although we will have very different mission focuses we want to keep our family connections!