At CCC we believe that the church exists to accomplish 5 distinct purposes. They are as follows: Believe, Connect,Grow, Serve, Share. We find these purposes in the commands of Jesus, and the practice of the New Testament church. We don’t invent purpose, rather we discover purpose.
Part of understanding Christ Community Church is seeing how these 5 purposes are accomplished. We have developed programs that are specifically designed to promote each purpose.
1. Believe/Worship- Weekend services are designed primarily for worship. The messages are geared toward a broad audience from the radically unchurched to dedicated followers of Jesus, and music is stylized to appeal to the people in our context.
2. Connect/Fellowship- Small Groups provide a way for the massive weekend crowd to get into a smaller community. A key word for small groups is relationships.
3. Grow/Discipleship- Growing University is a program we designed to meet the vast discipleship needs of the church. Every Fall and Spring we offer 20-25 disicpleship courses that range from deep expositional studies of the Bible to classes on biblical parenting.
4. Serve/Ministry- Ministry is service in the church. Ministry teams at CCC range from teams that greet guests to teams that clean up after events. Every member should be a “minister”, and every ministry team helps serve the members of the church.
5. Share/Missions/Evangelism- Every year we send out mission teams to take the gospel to remote locations. We share our faith through neighborhood outreach events.
If you come to a weekend worship service expecting discipleship, you will leave frustrated. But if you attend a Growing University course (like the one I am teaching through the book of Ezekiel this Fall), you will find deep biblical content.
If you come to a small group to looking to knock on doors and share the gospel, you are going go crazy when everyone wants to just hang out around coffee and dessert.
Now, this is not to say that there can’t be any mixture of purpose in these programs. You will definitely build relationships (Connect) when you are on a ministry team (Serve). The point is that we have developed these programs to meet the specific needs of their respective purposes.
These are our 5 purposes, and their accompanying programs. The purposes will NEVER change. That’s because they come from Jesus. He purchased the church by His death, therefore He gets to decide why the church exists. Our programs however, are flexible. They are meant to support the purposes.
A church is healthy when these purposes are in balance, and the same is true in your life. So, where are you? Have you been showing up on the weekends, but have yet to get in a small group? Are you mad about sharing your faith, but you have little time to serve your fellow believers? Check out the Great Commision:
Matthew 28:19-
Go (SHARE) therefore and make disciples (GROW) of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
and the Great Commandment:
Matthew 22:37, 39-
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God (BELIEVE/WORSHIP) with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (CONNECT/SERVE)
We want to balance these purposes at Christ Community Church. Are they balanced in your own life?
