Our Mission

What are we doing?

Our Mission as the First Church of God of Elizabethtown (I Cor. 1:2) is to be a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8) within the fellowship of believers, in our community and beyond (Luke 24:47).

How are we doing it?                               

The Elizabethtown First Church of God is a community of believers striving to:

w  Be closer to God today than yesterday.                   

w  Be outwardly focused.   

w  Be God’s instrument for changing lives.

w  Be a place for all ages, for all reasons, and for all seasons of life.   

Can you imagine this happening here in our church?

Ephesians 3:14-21

“Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.  Amen”                                                       (vss 20-21)

Statement #1:
Can you imagine your church reaching out to someone, only for them to find a community of followers of Jesus Christ that is being inwardly transformed by His ministry and Holy Spirit? The people are setting their personal agendas aside and instead seeking to have hearts closer to Christ and each other, resulting in unity, lives being set on spiritual fire by God and a daily deepening of their commitment to Him.         (Eph. 4:16;  Phil.3:21, 4:19)

4  To our community of believers, being inwardly strong means knowing and understanding God better each day through the practice of spiritual disciplines such as Bible study, service, worship, fasting and prayer.  (Eph. 4:17)

4  To our community of believers, being inwardly strong means having high expectations of its members such as worshipping regularly, giving generously, studying God’s word diligently, being involved in a small group, ministering according to giftedness, and being a personal witness. (Col. 2:7)

4  To our community of believers, being inwardly strong means returning to the urgent evangelistic fervor of our founder John Winnebrenner to be lived out in ways such as personal witnessing, community service, increased camp participation, hands on involvement with church planting and short term mission trips. (2 Tim 4:2)

4  To our community of believers, being inwardly strong means providing vibrant and relevant worship experiences, expressed in a variety of styles, at various times and for all ages. (Jn. 4:24; Ps. 22:3)

4  To our community of believers being inwardly strong means being a community of believers who are following a common vision, who share mutual accountability and responsibility to God and to each other. (Acts 2:42-47)

Can you imagine it happening here in our church?

Statement #2:
Can you imagine your church reaching out to someone, only for them to find a community of followers of Jesus Christ that is being transformed by His ministry and Holy Spirit [1]giving them an outward focus with a huge burden for lost people? The people of the church realize that all people matter to God, so they do not find it acceptable to only invite the community into the church. Rather they look outward to the community and beyond and say, “We are coming to you!”                    (Matt. 28:18-20)

4  To our community of believers, being outward focused means putting the highest value on what God values most highly. (Luke 15) All peoples who are not disciples of Jesus are lost and matter to Him. (Prov.11:30:Matt. 16:26; Luke 12:20,16:23,28)

4  To our community of believers, being outward focused means understanding more each day that Jesus’ primary mission was to people who did not yet know Him and not to the colony of the faithful. He did not come to call the righteous but those who did not know Him. (Matt 9:12-13).  We want to build bridges and relationships with people in our community and around the world.

4  To our community of believers, being outward focused means showing God and others what matters to us through practical means like our calendars and checkbooks. It is giving generously of our time and treasures. (Luke 12:34) We believe God wants us to be channels to others not reservoirs to ourselves.

4  To our community of believers, being outward focused means recognizing that God has gifted us with a caring church family whose hearts are growing more compassionate toward our community. We are not afraid to get out of our comfort zones to get down and dirty in order to prove God’s love and follow the Lord’s direction in everything we say and do. We are setting out to do acts of amazing love while connecting people to amazing grace. (Matt. 9:35-38)

4  To our community of believers, being outward focused means being servants of Christ who are striving to do the right things for the right reasons in our community and world. Our desire is to be the salt of the earth and light of the world (Matt 5:13-16). We do it to be a blessing not to be blessed. (Jn. 7:37-38, Matt. 10:8; Phil. 2:3)

Can you imagine it happening here in our church?

Statement #3:
Can you imagine your church reaching out to someone, only for them to find a community of followers of Jesus Christ that is being transformed by His ministry and Holy Spirit so that it measures success according to a different set of priorities? The people no longer focus only on attendance, programs, activities, and finances but rather on the number of servants sent and the stories of changed lives received.
 

4   In our community of believers, success is not measured by the size of the masses on Sunday but the number of ministers serving Monday through Saturday. Success for us is taking Jesus to places he isn’t always welcome. (John 12:12-16)

4  To our community of believers, success means accepting the challenge that we are living in difficult times and seizing it as an opportunity from God. We will ask a little from the many instead of much from the few. (1Th. 5:1-3)

4  To our community of believers, success means not working alone but serving through networking with other churches, parachurches, and community agencies that give us an open door, so we can build better systems to help meet holistic needs. (1 Ti. 2:1-7) We want to find out what God is doing and join him.

4  To our community of believers, success means showing God’s love by asking our local community how we can help, even in the most menial tasks. (Luke 18:41) We will strive to no longer be a stranger to Elizabethtown. Instead we will work to make an impact by bringing a beauty of the fragrance of Christ to our town. (Matt 26:6:13)

4  To our community of believers, success means being an army of servants that does not see the poor and needy as needing us, but us as needing them. When we serve the least of them, we are serving Jesus. (Matt 25:40)

Can you imagine it happening here in our church?

Statement #:4:
Can you imagine your church reaching out to someone, only for them to find a community of followers of Jesus Christ that is being so transformed by His ministry and Holy Spirit that it has an eternal perspective of its facilities and location? The people see the church building not as their own turf to be protected or their burden to bear, but as gifts from God given to them to serve the holistic needs of the people in their community and beyond during all seasons of life.

4  Our community of believers understands that our building and location are gifts from God to our community to allow us to worship the same God, pray, celebrate life, grieve, meet physical needs, and transform humanity forever. (Psalm 23:6, 26:8, 27;4, 84;10, 122:1; Micah 4:2; Luke 19:46)

4  Our community of believers understands that worshiping God and telling Him we love Him while sitting in our sanctuary but lacking concern for those on the outside is displeasing to God. (Isa. 58:6-7)

4  Our community of believers counts it a privilege to have these facilities where young and old can mentor and be mentored. (Prov.27:17; Eccl. 4:9-10)

We can only imagine what can happen here in our church!

“From you sounded out the Word of the Lord… ”                   (1 Thess.1:8)