Ministry Framework
At Emmanuel Church, we long to fulfill the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) by helping people Belong to God and the Church, Grow in Faith and Service, and Reach At Home and Away. Our main tools for this are Worship, Discipleship, and Outreach. All strategies, plans, ministries, and events we do support these goals.
Belong: To God and the Church
1 Peter 2:9 – “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
Romans 12:4–5 – “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Great Commission Tie-In: Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
In a world that is isolated and divided from God and from each other because of our sin and rebellion, the work of the Church is the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). We acknowledge that the Church is the family of God (Galatians 6:10, Ephesians 2:19) and that the cure for our isolation and loneliness is to be united to God and His people.
As such, we need to be a church that helps people experience the Living God through Worship, Discipleship, and Outreach, and we need to be a safe and welcoming place that people can find true belonging and community in.
Grow: In Faith and Service
Colossians 2:6–7 – “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
1 Peter 4:10–11 – “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms... so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”
Great Commission Tie-In: Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
In order to be the people we are meant to be, we need to be people who grow in our faith until we reach teleios, or completion and maturity (Matthew 5:48, Philippians 3:12, Hebrews 6:1, James 1:4). Growing in Faith and Service means becoming more and more like Jesus, and striving toward full orthodoxy - right thought or belief (2 Timothy 1:13-14), orthopathy - right emotions or experience (Ezekiel 36:26, Galatians 5:22-23), and orthopraxy - right action or behavior (Matthew 7:21, John 14:15).
Reach: At Home and Away
Acts 1:8 – “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Romans 10:14–15 – “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”
Great Commission Tie-In: Therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
The heart of the evangelical tradition is about sharing the good news of Jesus with the whole world. We are people who take seriously the fact that there are people who are lost and in need of Jesus to rescue them (Luke 19:10, John 10:11-15). It is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to carry the good news of Jesus to everyone (John 3:16) by bearing witness to what Jesus has done in and through us (1 Peter 3:15) in word and deed (Galatians 3:17). Acts 1:8 makes it clear that as a church our mission field is not just our neighborhood, nor is it just overseas, it is both-and, not either-or. As God provides the people, and the means, we respond to His call and, like Paul and Barnabas, train and commission our congregation to share the good news with the
whole world.