Urban Refuge Church
Mission, Vision, Values & Virtues
What we believe determines what we do. What we do is who we are.
Mission Statement
Be disciples of Jesus Christ who make disciples of all nations.
Vision Statement
Make the Kingdom visible.
Core Values
1. Christ-Centered Worship
Jesus is the head of the church, the Lord of our lives, and the focal point of our faith. We pursue a purity of devotion to Jesus Christ and joyfully embrace the Father’s plan to put all things under the feet of Jesus. As the gathered people of God, we worship him with our whole lives through prayer, scripture, song, communion, generosity, obedience, and delight in his presence.
2. Kingdom-Focused Witness
Christ proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. The good news is not just that our God has come, but that our God reigns. We seek first the kingdom of God as citizens of heaven and counter-cultural followers of Jesus. As the scattered people of God, we desire to make the kingdom visible through proclamation, hospitality, justice, mercy, compassion, and faithful presence in our city as we invite others into the life and reign of Christ.
3. Holistic Discipleship
The glory of the gospel is that it captures the whole person. We embrace the Lordship of Christ and the truth of the gospel with head, heart, and will. Therefore, our discipleship efforts aim for the holistic union of Word and Spirit, head and heart, body and spirit, faith and obedience, truth and love. We want to guard against producing lopsided disciples who create either/or commitments (Word or Spirit, truth or love, the Cultural Mandate or the Great Commission, etc.).
4. A Loving Church
We strive to cultivate a community where every person is seen, known, and loved. The church makes the kingdom of Christ visible when we love one another as Christ has loved us. The world will know we are disciples of Jesus by that love. We believe that without love we are nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. We aim to live out the “one another” commands of Scripture together as one body and stir one another up to love and good deeds.
5. Harmony in Christ
The church is to be a small working model of the new creation. Christ died to redeem people from every tribe, tongue, nation, and generation, and we desire to make that unity visible under the Lordship of Christ. We seek to cultivate a community where divisions of ethnicity, age, gender, class, relationship status, and socio-economic status no longer define our identity because Christ is all and in all. We believe reconciliation, mutual submission, shared life, and humble listening are essential marks of the people of God. We are committed to cultivating an intercultural church (i.e., a church where multiple cultures share life together as a family) rather than just a multi-cultural church (i.e., a church that contains multiple cultures that are not integrated together and do not enjoy harmony together).
6. Discipleship Across Generations
We are committed to making and maturing disciples in every season of life. The aim is not merely to be a multi-generational church (i.e., a church comprised of multiple generations). We aspire to be an inter-generational church (i.e., a church where multiple generations share life together across the generations). We believe spiritual formation happens best in an embodied community where older and younger generations learn from, encourage, and serve one another. We seek to disciple people in ways that wisely correspond to their capacities and stages of development while calling every person toward deeper maturity, obedience, wisdom, and participation in the mission of God.
7. Holistic Community Impact
Our faith in Christ compels us to make the kingdom visible and tangible in our community. We seek the good of the city by doing justice, loving mercy, serving our neighbors, responding with compassion, and showing up for the marginalized and vulnerable. We desire to embody the love of Christ in both word and deed so that our communities may experience a foretaste of God’s coming kingdom.
Virtues
When we embody beliefs and values, they become living and breathing virtues that reveal who we really are. The abundant life that Jesus gives and invites us to live fully into is received by faith, embraced in the mind, and practiced in action. We believe God has expressly called our church to pursue, emphasize, and live into these virtues.
Live a Gospel Life
The Gospel is the heart of everything we do. The love and forgiveness of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ propel us by the power of the Holy Spirit to follow Him, be like Him, and do like Him. We desire to proclaim the hope found in His saving grace and share the truth that sets us all free.
Live a Humble Life
Humility opens the doors to greater experiences of God’s grace, which in turn enables us to extend Christlike grace to others. We treasure God’s Word, the Bible, as our greatest way of understanding God and how to live a life that reflects His kingdom. We come to the Word humbly and with teachable hearts so we can learn from the Good Shepherd. We strive to live in humility and understanding toward others, trusting that each of us has something to teach and something to learn.
Live a Connected Life
Life is far better lived in circles than in rows. Church isn’t just about attending on Sundays; it’s about doing life together as followers of Jesus Christ and expressing His love to the community we are planted in. We believe this is true not only of individuals, but also of congregations. Prompted by the Spirit, we invite opportunities to partner with other churches and ministries. We believe that we are better together than alone, and trust that God will bless unity and use it to demonstrate His heart to a watching world.
Live a Peacemaking Life
A life of faith is meant to impact our entire being, including our conscience, our will, and our affections. Compartmentalized faith and relationships divided by hostilities and earthly differences of economics, age, and ethnicity will only yield a fraction of what life could be. We pursue life in harmony with God and others which gives us the clarity and courage to live justly, mercifully, and humbly.
Live a Spiritually Healthy Life
We place a high value on healthy single, married, and family life. We want to help each other love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies. We desire to experience healing for generational patterns of dysfunction so that we can be spiritually, emotionally, and relationally healthy in the present. We strive to inspire future generations to claim their faith and establish their own authentic relationships with Jesus Christ.
Live a Generous Life
We are never more like God than when we give. We’ve not only been given salvation through Jesus Christ but gifts of unique talents, abilities, and resources. We long to see lives given to God’s work through generous contributions of service and resources in our church, in our community, and in our world.