Core Values

Here are four values right at the heart of who we are as a church and who we are becoming. Our church mission has emerged directly out of these core values.

God. Community. Witness. Word.

Our deepest core value is God himself, who is the center of all things and therefore the center of our life together. He does not exist for us – we exist for him. This core value and conviction informs everything we do. It means that when we gather as a believing community on Sunday mornings and throughout the week, our goal is to point each other to God. It means also that our goal is for our community to increasingly reflect the character of God himself. It means that communicating the gospel of God through gospel words and gospel works is not merely one part of why we exist, but rather fundamental to who we are and all we do. It means that we treasure God’s Word because it tells us who God is.

God has fully revealed himself in Jesus Christ. The Bible says Jesus is the main point of the universe, and for that reason our community exists to display the worth of Jesus. Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead in order to create a new people for God, a group of redeemed and radically changed individuals living together in Jesus-centered community. God is present among us by his Holy Spirit, and as we experience gospel-centered life together in this new community, we become who we are in Jesus and display the worth of Jesus by demonstrating the success of his death and resurrection.

God. Community. Witness. Word.

People at PCF value a sense of family within our church. That’s good. Jesus told his disciples that people will know that we belong to him when we love each other (John 13:35). This sense of love and family is expressed by our second core value: ‘Community.’ We show this community in many ways. We enjoy being together – on Sunday mornings, with potlucks and game nights, in each others’ homes. We open God’s Word together and pray for each other in our Life Groups. Our relaxed and informal style expresses a love and acceptance of each other – we don’t need to put on a show for each other, we can be ourselves. The flood of meals many of us have experienced in times of need shows loving concern for each others’ well-being. And these are not just things that we do – this is who we are as a church. It’s in our collective DNA.

Paul prayed for the Philippians that their love would abound more and more (Philippians 1.9). This is our prayer for PCF as well. We live in a culture where people have many Facebook friends, but few face-to-face friends. God calls us in his Word to real and meaningful community rather than virtual community. Community is at the core of who we are and who we are becoming, and we desire to love each other with increasing energy, passion, and intention. This may sound scary. We’ve all been hurt by people, and giving ourselves to people opens us up to be hurt. But Jesus said that the greatest love is laying down your life for your friends (John 15.13). If we are willing to give ourselves whole-heartedly to one another, God will richly bless our Jesus-centered community.

God. Community. Witness. Word.

We praise what we prize. Our core value of witness flows directly from our core value of God and our desire to place God at the center of our life together. We prize God and wish to praise him to all who will listen. We don’t exist just to enjoy the worth of God ourselves, but also to display it to all around us. This is the purpose of our life together, not an optional add-on or something that only people with a special calling should do.

We best display the surpassing value of God by living out the lives he obtained for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. In Jesus-centered and Spirit-filled community, we embody the gospel for a watching world. Jesus died to set us free from sin. That means that as we become increasingly like him, we display the worth of his person and his work. The context for this growth is the believing community. Jesus said that the key way we show ourselves to be his disciples is by our love for one another (John 13.35). To display the worth of Jesus to the world, we must show this love beyond Sunday mornings and the church building. We must gather together with other believers in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods, and bring our friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors into these gatherings. We must let them see our love for one another that flows from our love for Jesus. Our witness is a whole-life commitment. Evangelism is best understood as ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality.

God. Community. Witness. Word.

The Word of God is precious to us because only through it do we know God in a saving way. Through the Word we become convicted of our sin, learn to know God as merciful and eager to forgive us, and come to regard God as our greatest treasure. Through the Word we learn about God’s character and are changed to be more like him. The Word of God is therefore the means by which our community is formed and sustained, and is central to our life together. When we gather in community, we look to God’s Word for direction, teaching, and transformation. It informs our praying, singing, preaching, and all other aspects of our life together. Our witness to those who don’t know Jesus occurs through the embodying of Jesus’ love in our community, through the speaking of gospel words, and through the doing of gospel works.