Loving God

We value dependence on God expressed through prayer.

Prayer is the primary way that we acknowledge the truth that God is the creator and sustainer of all things. We are to pray about all things and without ceasing, confident that God hears us.

Acts 17:24-25, Phil 4:6, 1 John 5:14

 

We value living in obedience to the authority of Scripture.

The Bible is God’s word spoken to us. We cannot deliberately ignore the word of God and consider ourselves followers of Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to grow the people of God.

2 Tim 3:16-17, James 1:22, Luke 6:46-49

 

We value yielding to the Holy Spirit.

We are open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit operating in accordance with Scripture.

We want to see the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) evident in the lives of all who claim to follow Jesus.

1 Cor 12-14, Rom 12:4-8, Gal 5:22-23

 

We value acts of worship in response to who God is and what He has done.

God acts toward us with grace which is shown in the created world and supremely in the Cross. Our worship is a response to this activity. Our acts of worship include both what we do when we gather corporately each week, and individually in our lives (work, play, study, etc.). The deeper the Gospel is understood, the more extravagant the response.

Luke 7:36-47, Rom 12:1-2, Eph 5:18-20, Ps 95:1-2, Ps 96:1-3

 

Loving One Another

We value equipping people for transformation and ministry.

We believe the responsibility of the church leadership is not to do the work of the ministry, but to equip the body to do the work. Our aim is not to be a market place of various ministries, but a mission training center.

Luke 10:1-12, Eph 4:11-16

 

We value healthy family life.

We believe marriage is designed to be between a man and a woman and strong marriages form the foundation for healthy family life. Marriages like this are achieved by following the guidelines put forth in the Bible (husbands self-sacrificially love their wives, wives respect their husbands, and children obey their parents). In addition we remember that singleness is a gift to be cherished, not a burden to be carried. A single person has increased opportunity to serve God free from distraction. In a culture of broken families we want to emphasize that God acts to redeem less than ideal situations.

Gen 1:26-27, Gen 2:21-25, Matt 19:1-12, 1Cor 7:1-16, Eph 5:18-6:4, Col 3:18-4:1

 

We value authentic community.

We seek to be a body of believers that has a deeper commitment to one another than can be achieved by looking at the back of each other’s heads each weekend. We want to foster a spiritual family atmosphere where we are open to accountability in our relationships, and have a genuine concern for the welfare of one another.

Eph 4:25-32, Mar 3:31-35, Rom 12:9-16, John 17:20-21, 1 John 3:16-18

 

We value being a church that reflects the ethnicity and inter-generational makeup of our local community.

We believe one way that the Kingdom of God is represented in the local church is by the breaking down of social and ethnic barriers. To the degree that we achieve this, we give the world a picture of the way it ought to be. The Gospel forms a community of the old and young, rich and poor, broken and whole, black and white.

Rev 7:9-17, Eph 2:14-22, Acts 10:34-35, Gal 3:28

 

Loving the World

We value doing justice and mercy as an outgrowth of the Gospel both locally and globally.

Scripture is clear that God cares for the oppressed and the poor. We as a church participate in what God is doing in the world when we have the same values that he does. While caring for the oppressed is not the Gospel itself, it is the result of the Gospel’s influence in the lives of those who have embraced it. We seek to balance our priorities between the plight of the disenfranchised in our city and those beyond our borders.

Micah 6:8, Is 1:17, Is 58:6-7, Amos 5:14-15, Luke 4:16-21, Matt 25:31-46, James 2:14-17

 

We value speaking the Gospel in culturally relevant ways in our community and around the world.

The Gospel is the message of salvation that must be heard to be believed. For the message to be accessible it must be communicated in ways that are understandable to its hearers. Great care must be taken to maintain the fundamentals of the Gospel when communicating it across cultures, but the need to communicate it still remains. We want to be skilled in understanding the nature of the Gospel itself and the context in which we are sharing it.

Rom 10:14-15, Matt 28:18-20, Acts 16:25-34, 1Cor 15:1-8

 

We value reflecting the reign of Christ in every area of life and society.

When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, he won a victory over all powers. He is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God as the reigning King of the universe. His kingdom has been inaugurated, but not yet fully consummated. The church, then, is a foreshadow to the day when Christ’s reign will be fully realized in all the earth. A significant part of our mission is to point to that day of consummation in every area of our lives (work, study, home, play, etc.).

Gen 2, Phil 4:8

 

Northview has been affiliated with the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches since its founding in 1980.