Mission / Vision

MISSION : To live and manifest the reality of our union with Jesus Christ.

Thus, we aim to :

• Remain attached to Jesus Christ, who is the only real foundation and source for the Christian life.

Since creation is fallen, we cannot know with clarity, with certainty who God is or what His ultimate purpose is for His creation by examining creation. We humans, with all our capacities (including our moral judgments and reason) are fallen and so naturally we are distrustful of God, which prevents us from truly and accurately knowing God and his will for us. Such knowledge comes to us only through the grace of God’s own revelation in Jesus Christ, God’s living Word. This revelation, which is preserved for us in the Bible, centers on the person and work of Jesus, who reconciles us to God. In Jesus, we see who God is, what God’s will is, and what God is currently doing in the world. We believe this has profound implications for the church, which is formed by the Spirit as the body of Christ on mission in the world.

So, the starting point for understanding God – that is, the divine heavenly reality as well as understanding creation, physical and earthly realities (including the reconciled humanity that is the culmination of his creation) is to ask this question: who is Jesus – and who are we in relationship with him? Jesus as the one who is both fully God and fully man, bearing both natures in his own being, belongs both to the eternal world of divine heavenly reality and to the historical world of physical, earthly realities. Our redemption depends not just on what Christ has done, but on who he is in the depths of his being – one with God and one with us. Our salvation, our life in Christ, has not only been accomplished through Christ, but “in Christ ».

The message of the New Testament is that we are so united with Christ that the very essence of our being is changed because it has become spiritually joined to the perfect humanity of Jesus. The apostle Paul writes that we are one in Spirit with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:17). The reality is that we have been included in what happened to Christ 2000 years ago. Union with Christ means that He is the unique and ultimate source of the meaning, purpose, reason, security, identity, dignity and destiny of our existence.

Our union with Christ is the central element of the Gospel message. In other words, without union with Christ, there would be no Gospel. God’s grace also reaches deep into who we are. We are no longer ourselves alone – we are who we are only in and through our union with Christ. We belong to God in Christ, body and soul.

We are, then, at the root of our being, who we are in relation to him who has made himself one with us. Our whole salvation is complete in Christ: not only our justification, but our sanctification and glorification too. To have Christ is to have the whole Christ. Christ cannot be divided into pieces, and so it is with our salvation too. What is complete and real in Christ is truly ours even if it doesn’t yet seem so. Our lives are hidden in Christ (Colossians 3:3). Our life in him is ongoing in us through the Spirit. This new humanity forged in us comes by the pure gift of our union with Christ. It is not the result of us working out a potential that could be true if we applied ourselves correctly. Rather, the Christian life is about living and manifesting the present reality of our union with Christ.

• Participate actively with Jesus Christ and thus honor him with our lives.

The reality of the depth of God’s grace in uniting us with Christ so that he shares with us his communion with the Father through the Holy Spirit moves us to go where he goes, do what he does and live for the glory of the Father, as he has always done and continues to do.

In order to participate with Christ and thus honor him in our actions, we ask the question: what is Jesus doing? Answering this question leads us to seek to discover what the real, actual Jesus is doing in the present situation, and to examine how we can participate in his activity.

The Christian life is nothing less than the gracious gift of daily gratitude for our real union with Christ, sharing in the reality of his glorified humanity and participating by faith in his faithful and ongoing ministry to us and all those around us. With that, we can surely build our lives in Christ’s name and live to the praise of his glory!

• To proclaim by the power of the Holy Spirit the reality of God’s present mission to reveal and reconcile humanity to himself through Jesus Christ.

This revelation is not simply about religion, morality, or salvation, but about the nature of reality itself – a reality that is rooted in the very nature of God, his purposes, his mind, his heart and his relationship with creation, and also with the nature of humanity and humanity’s relationship with God, one to the other and to all creation.

There is only one ministry of reconciliation, that of Jesus Christ, to which through our union with Christ we are joined. The Holy Spirit constitutes us as a church in union with his Head, joining us to Christ to share in his communion with the Father and in his mission received from the Father by faithfully witnessing to him in the world.

Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to call, form and equip the church to share in his ongoing ministry, which is to fulfill the Father’s mission in the world, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The church exists because of, and for, God’s mission. We are called by God to participate as partners and co-workers in His mission, and this includes sharing the Gospel and “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). We follow Jesus as he continues through the Holy Spirit to seek out true worshippers of his Father.

Mission derives from the nature of the Triune God, a God who sends. According to the Scriptures, God the Father sends the Son (John 3:17; John 5:36; John 6:57; Galatians 4:6; 1 John 4:9), the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; John 15:26; Acts 2:33), and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send the church into the world (Matthew 28:19-20); John 17:18; John 20:21; Acts 1:8; Acts 13:2-3).

God is therefore in his own nature a missionary God. Mission is God going forth; he is the Sender, the Sent, and the Sending. The Father is the first missionary who goes outside himself by creating the world and sending the Son for our salvation. The Son is the second missionary, redeeming the whole of humanity and creation through his life, death, resurrection and exaltation. The Holy Spirit is the third missionary who creates and empowers the church (the body of Christ), the fourth missionary, to go out into the world.

• Expressing God’s unconditional love and compassion in word and deed.

This loving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, will never give up on us, and by sheer grace has committed himself to leading us to the glorious goal of being his children through Jesus Christ.

So, by the Spirit we lead people to a faith, hope and love that trusts and believes “that he who began this good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6). Jesus is the one “who gives birth to faith and brings it to perfection” (Hebrews 12:2). We have a hope that knows God desires our sanctification and believes that, as Paul tells us, “He who called you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24). At Reality Church, we preach a hope that does not disappoint, based on God’s steadfast love poured out in us through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Romans 5:5).

We therefore preach, proclaim, teach and seek to discover God’s character and heart and promises, for everything we are called to do, all our responses, all our calls to action for participation and obedience rest on the proclamation of God’s faithfulness to be true to his word of promise – to do always and continually for us and in us – all on the basis of the reality of Christ’s vicarious humanity and our union with him.

Real compassion is a personal and active involvement that expresses God’s merciful heart. Christians are sometimes accused of being so heavenly-minded that they bring no good to earth. We lock ourselves away in choir rehearsals, end-time studies or other church activities and ignore the needs around us. When problems are brought to our attention, we simply feel sorry for them while doing nothing. But sympathetic thoughts or kind reflections are not true compassion.

With the divine power Jesus possessed, he could have seen to the needs of the multitude simply by forming a thought or formulating a command. He could even have done so from heaven without coming to earth. But his compassion (Mark 6:34) led him not only to come and live among us and die for us, but also to touch the blind and lepers and take little children in his arms. True compassion is a personal and active involvement that expresses God’s merciful heart.

God’s chosen people must “clothe themselves” with compassion (Colossians 3:12). We want to meet the needs of others, not just continually satisfy our own selfish desires. As God pours out his comfort on us through his word and other believers, we in turn want to redirect the flow of his mercy to others. We don’t want to hoard God’s love, but generously share the good news of his compassion to all, in word and deed.

But in the mind and activity of the Triune God, there is no dualism, no separation of reality into “spiritual” and “natural” spheres. Through the Incarnation, God has permanently united himself with the “natural”. In the person of Jesus, God took on flesh, thus uniting himself with his creation. We see the result of this union in the life Jesus lived while on this earth nearly 2000 years ago. Jesus was concerned and compassionate towards all people, whatever their condition. In his eyes, all humans, whether “spiritual” or not, were of equal value. He loved and cared for all. Jesus was (and still is) “the friend of sinners” (Matthew 11:19). And that’s a good thing for all of us, because “sinner” is the human condition.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for followers of Jesus (Christians) to think that their vocation is to isolate themselves from the “natural” world in order to focus on “spiritual” matters (usually defined as church programs).

Now, the Bible tells Christians to “Set your minds on things above, not on things on earth” (Colossians 3:2). But Paul’s exhortation is about being Christ-centered in our thinking, not about withdrawing from the world. In fact, when we see Jesus more clearly, we see the Mediator of all humanity, who, through the Spirit, is actively involved in the lives of all people, sharing his love and life with them in order to draw them into communion with himself where they can discover their true identity – an identity now “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

One of the beautiful and amazing things about Jesus is how he gives value and deep meaning to every life. With him and in him, there is no spiritual/natural dividing line; no sacred/profane dualism. There is only one Christ, who is Creator and Redeemer, and therefore Lord of all. In him, all creation has been resurrected from death and destruction. So when we walk with him (our calling as followers of Christ), all aspects of life have profound eternal meaning and value (at least potentially). This includes “spiritual” aspects like prayer, Bible study, worship assemblies and the like. But it also includes seemingly “unspiritual” (natural) things like going for or taking a walk, watching a sunset, building a chair, painting a picture, playing a song, working hard at a job, and so on. In Christ, all times, all activities, all endeavors are sacred; they all have redemptive value as we participate in these things with Jesus and therefore through him.

And so, as we move through life, we ask, “Jesus, what are you doing and how can I participate?” And in doing so, we discover that Jesus’ love, compassion, care and concern know no bounds. We live life (all of it) as a “sent one”-someone on a mission with Jesus. The church (Christians) exists not to stand apart from the world, but to stand with Jesus, for the sake of the world. We go out into the world as compassionate servants/delegates to our Lord’s creation, which, in His mind, is not divided into “spiritual” and “natural” compartments.

• Be a community of believers that, out of love and compassion, seeks to welcome and serve others without judgment or condemnation.

Rather than seeing the task of evangelism as getting people to believe so that they can then belong to the community, Reality Church as a community of service and ministry offers unbelievers a safe place where they can first belong so that they can explore faith, come to believe, and thus grow in maturity in the grace and knowledge of Christ as disciples.

• Forming a community centered on relationship with God and our neighbor.

From all eternity, God is Father, Son and Spirit, and this means that God is fundamentally a relational Being. And this tells us a lot about what it’s like to be made in God’s image. That God exists as Father, Son and Spirit means that community, fellowship and communion have always been central to the Being that is God, and always will be. The Trinitarian life is one of free community and intimacy, fueled by a passionate love of mutual pleasure and self-giving. “God is love (agape)” (1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16). Such passionate holy love gives rise to a communion that flows so freely, it overflows with superabundant joy, in infinite creativity and inconceivable goodness.

This triune God is the Creator, and his divine life of unity and companionship is the womb or matrix of creation. This divine communion of abundant joy is the rhythm, movement and reason behind the existence of the human race and every person included. Jesus, through his continual incarnation, shares with us through the Spirit his real humanity and his communion with the Father. Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, became flesh, like us, in order to be our substitute, to save us and to represent us, his brothers and sisters, in the Father’s presence (see John 1:14; Ephesians 1:9-10; Ephesians 1:20-23). Through Christ, we have a relationship with God! The Holy Spirit dwells within us. We belong to the Father and, in Christ, we are His beloved.

This saving relationship of exchange, in which we are grasped by grace, calls for interaction, interrelations and responsiveness out of love. Salvation, rather than being an impersonal state of equilibrium of being, like a statue, is a relational reality. This is what makes salvation personal and alive. To be united with Christ is to be in a loving, living, dynamic relationship of intimate giving and receiving, within a wondrous communion. This relationship determines the essence of who we are and who we are becoming. At Reality Church, we call it “realation ».

Human beings were created to be in relationship with God and with people, relationships that reflect a certain kind of love, namely agape love (God’s holy love). God has given humanity a nature that corresponds to this purpose. In accordance with this nature, God, our Creator and Redeemer, from His love and grace, commands human beings first to love Him with all their hearts, thoughts, souls and strength, and then to love their neighbors (Matthew 22:37-40). In this way, human beings live firstly in a relationship of adoration towards God and secondly in a relationship with others that reflects, or bears witness to, and corresponds to their primary relationship of adoration towards God. We can refer to these secondary relationships with humans as witnessing relationships, because they witness (reflect) the primary relationship of worship that humans have with God as God, Lord and Savior.

Being in a healthy loving relationship (agape) of worship with God involves who we are and all that we are as human beings: our heart, soul, mind and strength/body – the totality of our being (nature). All aspects and dimensions of human life must be aligned first in relation to God, then in relation to other people and, finally, to all creation.

VISION : That every person in our community lives the life of a disciple of Jesus by actively embracing the reality :

• who Jesus Christ is (Mark 8:27)
• and thus the reality and actuality of who we are in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:6)
• and what we are to do in response (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

The reality of our union with the risen and ascended Christ grants us the privilege of being God’s children. This is how we receive the gift of participation in Christ’s life as His brothers and sisters, and our participation in His present mediation and continuing ministry. Because God in Jesus Christ has truly united Himself with us, and has truly united us with Him, everything we think or do within Reality Church, we aim to do as His children, participating with Him in everything He is currently doing in our community through Christ’s ongoing ministry by the power of the Spirit.

This vision will be realized by the Spirit, being propelled by faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13 ; Colossians 1:5) toward God’s living, speaking Word. This Word presents a gracious God who, by grace, promises to be faithful and to give us an inheritance as his children united to Christ. Jesus is God’s only word to humanity, and humanity’s only word to God. It’s for this reason that even Scripture is subject to his lordship. Jesus claims to be the key to understanding Scripture and having life (John 5:39-40). So we seek to read the Bible not so much literally, but realistically through the lens that is Jesus, the living Word and Revelation of God – the one in whom reality is found (Colossians 2:17). This Word invites unshakeable confidence in the continuation and continuity of Christ’s work and ministry, and the power and joy of the Spirit to enable us to participate in it through our union with him. All our efforts built on this foundation will reflect in word and deed the very character of God, and exude joyful confidence in the continuation of his ongoing work.