City 7 Core Values
“A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14) | “Seek the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14)
Our Vision: Living as and longing for the city of God
Our Vision: Living as and longing for the city of God
Word & Spirit
We believe that God has revealed Himself in the Bible and that every word in the Bible is God’s Word. God has given everything we need for life and godliness in His Word. So, we read, study and teach the Bible verse by verse in every environment or ministry. We believe that God desires to fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we are empowered to live a victorious and vibrant spiritual life for His glory! We desperately seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit and use our spiritual gifts. Like a sailboat, we need the rudder and the wind!
Hearts & Minds
Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It is our prayer that God will use everything we do to transform hearts and minds. We will love God with all our heart through prayer, worship, obedience, passion and hope for the city to come. We will love God with all our mind by reading, studying, discussing and meditating on His word. We will know why we believe what we believe through the weekly confession of The City 7 Core Truths.
Grace & Truth
Jesus ate dinner with sinners and invited sinners to follow Him. He was known for hanging out with and even partying with people that were nothing like Him. However, Jesus had no problem calling a sinner a sinner! Jesus was full of grace and truth and ministered with compassion and conviction. Disciples of Jesus show compassion anchored to truth and share conviction clothed in compassion. Like Jesus, we believe God’s ways and design, as revealed in the Bible, are always best and bring ultimate satisfaction and joy. We believe that disobeying anything in God’s word is disobeying God Himself. Jesus being full of grace and truth means you come to Jesus as you are but He won’t leave you the way you are. When you believe in Jesus, you are transformed into and are always becoming a disciple that denies yourself and loves, follows, worships and serves Jesus. As Jesus said, we show our love for God by obeying what He commands through repentance.
Old & New
Jude wrote that we should defend the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. We have a faith, a message, a gospel, that has been delivered to us by God and doesn't change. The Bible is clear that nothing can be added to or taken away from the revelation of God in His word. In addition, we honor 2,000 years of church history that has come before us. We are standing on the shoulders of saints that have paid a great price so that we might know the gospel, have the Word of God and learn from their mistakes. At the same time, God is always doing a new thing in and through His people so that we might believe and walk in the old things once received. This value is best seen in the songs we sing, the way we preach and the confessions we recite.
Multi-Generational & Multi-Ethnic
The gospel tears down all the walls of hostility and makes us fellow citizens of the “city of our God.” So, we believe the gospel brings people of different ethnicities, genders, ages, incomes and political persuasions together as one family in Christ, which is now their primary identity and a preview of the city to come. Our initial steps in this direction are seen in our putting roots in Downtown Lubbock and a new effort to have a multi-ethnic leadership and staff. In order to create a common conversation across our church and in families, and in order to resource parents, our worship services, kids ministry, youth ministry, college ministry, small groups, Daily Devotionals and Table Talk for parents have a unified vision with similar content. All ministries cover the same verses, content and big ideas that are covered in the Sunday worship services. Some Sundays children will be in their class to have age appropriate teaching and other Sundays children will join their families for worship.
Mission & Justice
Jesus told his disciples that following Him meant becoming fishers of men. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations. So, the evangelistic work of declaring the gospel is the primary ministry that the church has toward the world. We also believe that disciples of Jesus will show empathy towards and become defenders of the oppressed, the orphan, the unborn, the widow, the foreigner, the poor and the prisoner. We believe that justice for the oppressed is a spiritual issue. So, accompanying the primary works of evangelism are ministries of mercy and justice that adorn the gospel we profess. As we seek the city that is to come, we will partner with God in His redeeming of all things now.
Here & There
Jesus told His disciples to make disciples of all nations starting in Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. We want to be the workers Jesus desires to use to make disciples here (in our homes, through our City Groups and in our city) and there (among unreached people groups). We seek to mobilize every disciple of Jesus to be fruitful and multiply and become a disciple maker “here” or “there.”
We believe that God has revealed Himself in the Bible and that every word in the Bible is God’s Word. God has given everything we need for life and godliness in His Word. So, we read, study and teach the Bible verse by verse in every environment or ministry. We believe that God desires to fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we are empowered to live a victorious and vibrant spiritual life for His glory! We desperately seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit and use our spiritual gifts. Like a sailboat, we need the rudder and the wind!
Hearts & Minds
Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It is our prayer that God will use everything we do to transform hearts and minds. We will love God with all our heart through prayer, worship, obedience, passion and hope for the city to come. We will love God with all our mind by reading, studying, discussing and meditating on His word. We will know why we believe what we believe through the weekly confession of The City 7 Core Truths.
Grace & Truth
Jesus ate dinner with sinners and invited sinners to follow Him. He was known for hanging out with and even partying with people that were nothing like Him. However, Jesus had no problem calling a sinner a sinner! Jesus was full of grace and truth and ministered with compassion and conviction. Disciples of Jesus show compassion anchored to truth and share conviction clothed in compassion. Like Jesus, we believe God’s ways and design, as revealed in the Bible, are always best and bring ultimate satisfaction and joy. We believe that disobeying anything in God’s word is disobeying God Himself. Jesus being full of grace and truth means you come to Jesus as you are but He won’t leave you the way you are. When you believe in Jesus, you are transformed into and are always becoming a disciple that denies yourself and loves, follows, worships and serves Jesus. As Jesus said, we show our love for God by obeying what He commands through repentance.
Old & New
Jude wrote that we should defend the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. We have a faith, a message, a gospel, that has been delivered to us by God and doesn't change. The Bible is clear that nothing can be added to or taken away from the revelation of God in His word. In addition, we honor 2,000 years of church history that has come before us. We are standing on the shoulders of saints that have paid a great price so that we might know the gospel, have the Word of God and learn from their mistakes. At the same time, God is always doing a new thing in and through His people so that we might believe and walk in the old things once received. This value is best seen in the songs we sing, the way we preach and the confessions we recite.
Multi-Generational & Multi-Ethnic
The gospel tears down all the walls of hostility and makes us fellow citizens of the “city of our God.” So, we believe the gospel brings people of different ethnicities, genders, ages, incomes and political persuasions together as one family in Christ, which is now their primary identity and a preview of the city to come. Our initial steps in this direction are seen in our putting roots in Downtown Lubbock and a new effort to have a multi-ethnic leadership and staff. In order to create a common conversation across our church and in families, and in order to resource parents, our worship services, kids ministry, youth ministry, college ministry, small groups, Daily Devotionals and Table Talk for parents have a unified vision with similar content. All ministries cover the same verses, content and big ideas that are covered in the Sunday worship services. Some Sundays children will be in their class to have age appropriate teaching and other Sundays children will join their families for worship.
Mission & Justice
Jesus told his disciples that following Him meant becoming fishers of men. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations. So, the evangelistic work of declaring the gospel is the primary ministry that the church has toward the world. We also believe that disciples of Jesus will show empathy towards and become defenders of the oppressed, the orphan, the unborn, the widow, the foreigner, the poor and the prisoner. We believe that justice for the oppressed is a spiritual issue. So, accompanying the primary works of evangelism are ministries of mercy and justice that adorn the gospel we profess. As we seek the city that is to come, we will partner with God in His redeeming of all things now.
Here & There
Jesus told His disciples to make disciples of all nations starting in Jerusalem, then Judea, Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. We want to be the workers Jesus desires to use to make disciples here (in our homes, through our City Groups and in our city) and there (among unreached people groups). We seek to mobilize every disciple of Jesus to be fruitful and multiply and become a disciple maker “here” or “there.”