Redemption Church’s Axioms

These are the axioms that, along with the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed, describe the theological beliefs of Redemption Church. This text was copied out of the original PDF by ChatGPT.

Why All-Church Axioms?

We love our church and want to help one another live with an ongoing sense of health, connection, and commitment to our mission. As we continue to see new people join our family, we want to put in writing some things that describe who we are.

Our church has a significant amount of clarity and conviction about our mission and vision that is part of our church culture. Culture is something you experience with a group of people walking together in a particular place and time. As always, our heart is to help people grow spiritually.

We are calling these statements axioms. An axiom is a clear and concise idea or statement set forward and accepted by a community. So, we want these axioms to:

Introduce new people to our culture.
Serve as guideposts to keep us on track as we move forward together.

We think this will encourage us to live out our key commitments as a family. This also gives us a healthy place to grow as we learn new things from new friends and make course corrections as needed down the road.

These will be “living” axioms, meaning they will likely morph or change over time. It might be helpful to think of these as our current operating system, which may need changes and updates in the future. This means that we may add some in the future, and we may edit or hone others.

You will be part of learning and spreading these around in the normal life of our church: our membership process, team huddles, small groups, ministry meetings, and more. They will be used as teaching and conversation tools to keep us focused.

In the end, these ought to help us live out our mission and vision:

Our mission is to make authentic followers of Jesus who live for the glory of God and the good of our world.
Our vision is to help everyday people wake up to deep, meaningful life in Christ.

1: Everything Starts with God

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Above everything else in life, our highest priority is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This is why we seek to keep God at the center of all that we do.

If we lose sight of God personally, we put ourselves on the throne of our lives and begin to do what seems right in our own eyes, and this never ends well. If we lose our love of God as an organization, we will become a mere social club that holds self-help pep rallies on the weekends. We never want to be a church that does lots of good in the world only to find that we have “abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:4).

We believe Psalm 16:11 which says, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Because we believe God is more wonderful than anything or anyone else, we hunger for a personal and real relationship saying (Psalm 63): “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water…Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”

Life itself began with God, and He ordered this world in such a way that love was at the very core of our relationship with Him. Everything we do ought to flow out of our connection to God and His love. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Everything in the Christian life starts and ends with God, so we live with a sense of reverence and awe that gives our lives meaning and depth that is much bigger than we are.

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. … For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.” – A. W. Tozer

Practical Ways This Works Out:

All of life is worship: Worship is more than singing. Every moment in every setting has the potential to be an act of worship. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Know and enjoy God personally: Develop a relationship with God that includes personal times of devotion in prayer and in God’s Word. Talk with God as you go about your day. Invest in a growing surrender to God as you get to know Him better and walk in His ways.
Honor Christ as your Savior and Lord, Rescuer and King: When we become Christians, we reorient all of life under His leadership. Scripture says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God…” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Approach our worship gathering with God as your focus: Pray for our people. Prepare your heart for worship. Confess your sin as before our holy God. Be attentive to God. Listen. Receive the Lord’s direction. Respond to God personally as you trust and obey God as God.
Deepen your doctrine: Our beliefs are not mere formulas to which we coldly adhere or statements to which we sign our name. Our doctrine deepens our love for God and magnifies our gratitude and worship. Our core beliefs inform our perspectives on life, on our church, and on our relationship to our world. We desire to deepen our understanding of who God is and live in light of all we know about Him.
Make God known: When we enjoy God, we will want to share Him with others. This is natural: whenever we discover a great restaurant or celebrate a monumental win by our favorite team, we find ourselves telling others about the experience. The same should happen when we discover the grandeur and goodness of our God – but even more so!

2: People Are the Mission

After giving the first and greatest commandment about loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, Jesus told His disciples that the second great commandment is: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This second command, like the first, is grounded in love.

We see this focus everywhere in Jesus’ mission. When He called the first disciples, He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19) Later, He would say, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21) With this simple statement, He sent us to people with whom we are to carry on the work He came to do.

This gives direction to all of our efforts. When we sit down in church, we engage with those around us. In our role on a serve team, we serve as we would want someone to serve us. In our small group, we connect with the people around us to make a difference in their lives. In our city, we love others as Christ loved us. We are a church that loves people.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

Welcome everyone as if this is our only chance: We will initiate with a smile and a warm welcome with everyone we see. Let’s assume God put us in their path to be an encouragement. This may be our only chance to share God’s love with them.
Everyone has a story: Each person who walks into our church is valued as someone created in the image of God. We seek to engage them where they are, listen to their story, and invite them into God’s redemption story.
Our mission drives our ministry: We make disciples of Jesus. We will utilize buildings and programs to accomplish this mission, but we seek to keep the focus on people. Programs and facilities are tools to help us reach and disciple people, and we will make changes to these if we can better serve people another way.
Make things better: Because people are so important, we do the best we can. As leaders and as a church, we will make mistakes, so we are always seeking to make things better. Part of learning is experimenting, failing, and improving. We will try things that will end up not working. We will have to “tweak” things on the fly. This is normal, expected, and healthy.

3: We Will Be an Authentic Community

We will be an honest, healthy, together community. Jesus prayed a powerful request for all who would follow Him by faith, praying: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21)

In Jesus’ evaluation, unity is paramount.

The most honest and healthy place we can find ourselves is in seeing what God sees. We will seek truth, knowing that sin and weakness are places for God to shine and provide witness to Him both within and without our church. We will trust God’s grace together in our brokenness. This requires humility and transparency on our parts, which feel like a deep personal cost but lead to a meaningful and maturing reward for ourselves and our church family.

To walk in this vulnerability, we need to be a community that is marked by love for one another. We read about this kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13. We will not do this perfectly, so we admit when we are wrong and say, “I’m sorry.” We forgive one another because love keeps no record of wrongs. We see conflict as an opportunity to grow together in grace and understanding. We listen. We choose to believe the best about one another. We get help from others when things seem too difficult to manage. We fight to be a healthy family.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

Our beginning place is admitting our brokenness: Jesus outed us all as sinners when He gave His life for us on the cross to pay for our sin. By definition, calling ourselves Christians is an admission that we are sinners in need of a Savior.
Unity is huge: An authentic together community means a united team with an imperfect program always beats a divided team with a perfect program. As a team, we each have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different roles and responsibilities, yet we succeed and fail together. We will not all agree on every decision, but we commit to work through differences together in a respectful way.
We lean into the tension in the room: We are committed to being peacemakers, so we see conflict as an opportunity to clarify differences and deepen trust on our team. That means we talk to one another rather than talking to others about tensions we are feeling. We will be honest as we lean into the tension.
Flex on peripheral issues: Healthy Christians approach various aspects of church life (e.g., styles, programs, preferences) with grace and flexibility. Peripheral issues will not become central. We will seek to love and care for all, but inflexible individuals will not hold our mission hostage.
We listen to the vulnerable: We invite all to voice concern over any potential abuse or inappropriate engagement to our deacons, staff, pastors, and/or elders. Abusers will not be tolerated in the pews; enablers will not be tolerated in leadership.

4: Discipleship Is for Everyone

A disciple is a follower, a learner, a student. It’s a general term which means that you could be a disciple of a famous economist, a writer, a pop musician, a politician, or basically anyone. We’re constantly absorbing things from outside influences which can make us disciples, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

As Christians, our first and deepest influence is Jesus. God sent Jesus to right the wrongs of sinful humanity and usher in a new kingdom where all would flourish as God intended. Jesus’ work won’t be completed until He returns in the future, but we all are invited to live under this good King and to learn to walk in His ways.

Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). To take up one’s cross is to deny one’s self and learn a new way of living. The Bible describes this journey in several ways: we repent of our old ways and trust Jesus to give us new ways; we learn to “put off” the old self and to “put on” the new self; we cease walking in the flesh and start walking in the Spirit. Christians call this life-long growth process “discipleship.”

To that end, every gathering, group, team, friendship, and conversation is an opportunity to help one another learn to live the way of Jesus. As a church, everything we do is informed by Jesus’ call to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Practical Ways This Works Out:

The stage is not our primary focus: We deeply value the gathering of the church together, but we want more for each other than mere Sunday attendance. The church equips all Christians to be representatives of the King we serve. A church that grows together is always seeking others to bring along in the process of becoming authentic disciples of Jesus.
We grow best in face-to-face relationships: Discipleship happens in the context of community where we experience challenge and correction, encouragement and admonishment, care and community. While the truth of the gospel is the same for all, how we experience God and His grace is unique to each of us. Different seasons will lend themselves to different availability and needs, but we always need others to help shape our formation.
We want transformation, not just information: We seek to be doers of the Word, not just hearers of the Word (James 1:22-25). That means we study the Bible in order to apply the Bible to our lives.
We want whole-life discipleship: We balance the love of biblical truth, the beauty of Christ-like character, and the strength of Christ-like service. Like a three-legged stool, each is essential to our discipleship.

5: We Need Both Bridges and Barriers

As Christians who live in a complex time, it can be confusing how to think and feel about our world. On the one hand, we see brokenness that leads to frustration. On the other hand, we see beauty in people made in the image of God, and we are filled with compassion. As followers of Jesus, our goal is to see others as God sees them.

To help us visualize differing aspects of these realities, we’ve chosen to talk about the need for both bridges and barriers. We want to build bridges to connect in love, and we need to build barriers to protect truth.

As we seek to reach out to our friends and neighbors, we will need to build bridges inviting all to experience the life of flourishing God desires for us. At the same time, life under God’s care and direction necessitates establishing healthy moral, doctrinal, and spiritual boundaries to guard the health of His people. This is a tension we will navigate as a church committed to engaging our world for both the good of others and the glory of God.

For 2,000 years, the church has wrestled with this tension, sometimes effectively and sometimes less so, and we can learn much from the many Christians who have come before us. From the apostles in the book of Acts to our current time, the church has set boundaries (or barriers) around the life of the Christian. With the Bible as our authority, the historic confessions and conduct of the Church provide deep roots which shed light on our current cultural moment. With the Spirit’s help, we inhabit a living faith that we inherit from the past and pass down to future generations.

When we speak of building bridges, we mean that we are purposefully and passionately inviting new people to cross over from unbelief to faith in Christ through gospel conversion and new life in a new community called the church.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

There is a difference between becoming and belonging: As people explore faith in Christ, we want to create space for them to experience a healthy church first-hand. Without personal knowledge or relationship, this may create some uncertainty about who is “inside” and “outside” the faith. We believe this is a necessary tension for people to truly and freely explore what faith in Christ is all about. To that end, some roles and responsibilities are great for all who are seeking to become more of who God created us to be, while other roles or responsibilities are more appropriate for those who belong to our church by faith and conviction. Both are welcome, just in different places in a season.
We commit to the long game of relationships over reactions: In our current cultural moment, we will pursue the longer conversation surrounding tough issues in lieu of hasty, reactionary responses. We will not shy away from truth-telling as revealed in Scripture, but we won’t feel the pressure to respond to every social upheaval in real time. The work of becoming conversant instead of cursory will, we believe, help us seek to enter the fray, offer hope and direction, and collectively grow towards maturity in Christ. We choose health over hurry.
We will address the brokenness of both religious sinners and irreligious sinners: It is easy to view the sins of others as worse than our own sins. Too often, the church has overlooked things which were viewed as more “acceptable” sins within a church culture (e.g., pride, greed, gluttony) while harping on supposed “larger” sins more visible outside the church (e.g., sexual sin, gambling, drug addiction). We want to be like Jesus, who routinely confronted religious sinners at least as directly as irreligious sinners.
We will invest in the good of our city: We will participate in civic or community events that are non-church events outside the walls of the church. Sometimes, this means participating and partnering with those who do not share our viewpoints, moral convictions, or faith in Christ. It is helpful to view these as bridge-building events for the purpose of making a relational investment with the people of our community. In these events, we assume a posture of humility and generosity, seeking to give a gift to the city, but knowing that we cannot control all that occurs in such a setting.

6: Jesus Flipped Leadership Upside Down

Everything in Jesus’ life and ministry seemed to be exactly the opposite of what people expected. This is captured beautifully in Philippians 2:1-11, where we read, “Though He was in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

This is the most shocking and mind-blowing leadership move in history: God over all became the servant of all to the point of sacrificing His very life for the good of all.

In the history of the church, this approach to life has become known as the way of the cross. It stands in contrast to the way of glory, which describes the typical approach to power and leadership that we see in the world. Thus, following Jesus means rejecting worldly approaches to leadership, which are often concerned with power, celebrity, significance, and status. We choose Jesus’ upside-down way of the cross rather than the world’s way of glory.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

We are all called to lead–somewhere: The call of Christ to lead by serving affects all relationships: work life, marriage, parenting, etc. These relationships should experience gospel transformation as we learn to walk according to the upside-down kingdom values.
We are a team: Like any team, we will have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different roles and responsibilities. Team members interact with honesty, transparency, and accountability to others. As we grow together in Christlikeness, we may take on different roles or responsibilities within our teams, but we never outgrow the highest values of love and service to one another.
Church leadership roles are chief servant roles: Elders, deacons, and others who lead are Christ-like examples for the church who do so in humble and sacrificial ways rather than domineering or compulsive ways.
We invite in, build up, send out, and cheer on others: Leaders are called to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:11-16). We seek to outdo one another in honoring and celebrating others, looking out for their interests above our own.
We live for a King and a kingdom: When we get leadership wrong, it usually means we want a kingdom without a King. But Christ already earned the right to the only throne in this kingdom, so we gladly submit to Him and learn to live His upside-down way as a servant.

7: Prayer Is the Path to Spiritual Vitality

Prayer is as counter-cultural a thing as we can do in a hyper-busy, success-obsessed, image-aware, and media-overloaded suburban culture.

“American culture is probably the hardest place in the world to learn to pray. We are so busy that when we slow down to pray, we find it uncomfortable. We prize accomplishments, production. But prayer is nothing but talking to God. It feels useless, as if we are wasting time. Every bone in our body screams, ‘Get to work.’”
(A Praying Life, 15)

This is actually why prayer is so important! Prayer forces us to look beyond ourselves. Jesus Himself showed us the priority of praying to our Father in heaven:

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed.”
(Mark 1:35)

Jesus modeled for us the way of union with God through prayer. Spiritual growth is fueled by a vibrant prayer life as we discover how to walk with God in real friendship that restores and re-centers our lives.

When we pray, we say, “I am not made for myself, and I was not intended to manage all of life on my own. Right now, I need God’s love, joy, grace, guidance, and help.” We seek a regular rhythm that balances:

Our confession of our need for God in our lives, church, and world.
Our commitment to trust God with our lives, church, and world.

In prayer, whether individually or together, we seek God’s praise and presence, as well as His provision. We pray expectantly to our Heavenly Father who loves us and never leaves us.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

Prayer is more caught than taught: Like riding a bike, the best way to learn to pray is by praying. There is no way to download, absorb, read, or podcast a prayer life. It’s something you learn through doing it.
Prayer is not a performance: Don’t dress it up with impressive or “spiritual-sounding” language. Just talk to God like you would speak with your most trusted friend.
Praying fosters joy, hope, and strength: Over time, we discover intimacy with God as He meets us in prayer, fellowship, and deep dependence upon Him.
Prayer takes different forms for different purposes: We need a well-rounded prayer life that includes:
Praying in a church gathering.
Praying in small groups.
Praying alone.
Silent prayers, audible prayers, kingdom prayers, abiding prayers, intercessory prayers, moment-by-moment prayers, and regular rhythms of prayer.

8: Your Whole Life Matters to God

Every aspect of your life matters to God. Jesus said we find life that is really life when we:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”

His point is not so much for us to break things down into categories as it is to show us that everything we are and do is connected to our love of God.

To live this way, we will actively pursue Christ personally as active participants in the full life of the church. We often learn about the forgiveness of God from relationships with others, as we receive and offer forgiveness. Our spirituality is lived in the context of our vocational, social, emotional, and physical lives. These wider connections and everyday applications of lived truth are essential to spiritual flourishing.

We value spiritual health above spiritual performance, and we see this through an emphasis on being as well as doing. In other words, our private and personal walk with the Lord is inseparable from our corporate connections and public usefulness to the Lord. We acknowledge that much of the spiritual health we experience as a church depends on our commitment to our spiritual well-being in everyday life as individuals.

Our regular gatherings and rhythms of worship and service are enriched by our pursuit of God as well as His pursuit of us. Our faith influences all of life.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

We seek to grow our minds: We want to cultivate biblically-grounded, gospel-motivated, culturally-engaged minds as we navigate the complexities of our world in God-honoring ways. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
We need wholeness and holiness:
We won’t be spiritually mature and emotionally immature.
We won’t pursue deep doctrine at the expense of Christ-like morality and character.
We encourage holistic care, including spiritual practices, prayer, gospel community, medical care, therapy, physical health, and diet.
We appreciate the mystery of our souls: We are not mere materialists. God created us as complex beings, including both material and immaterial. Walking by faith means trusting God through seasons of questioning, sadness, and sorrow, knowing He is transforming us.
Our physical presence makes a difference: Jesus’ incarnation highlighted the importance of physical presence. So, we value attendance at worship gatherings and personal interactions.
Our vocation matters to God: Whatever task we do—whether glorious or mundane—is part of our worship. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).
All of life is worship: Even ordinary things like laughter, hiking, and mowing the lawn express gratitude to God. Our darkest days carry glimmers of grace; our brightest days foretell life in the new heavens and earth.

9: We Serve and Give So That Others May Live

Jesus taught His followers about His mission, saying:

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

This verse reminds us of Jesus’ costly sacrifice and His call upon our lives. Christ’s mission carries a sense of urgency because eternity is at stake for people all around us.

Our church began as a grassroots, all-in, every-person-makes-a-difference community. To maintain our passion, we must continue to call and equip people to a lifestyle of service.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

We give generously, cheerfully, systematically, passionately, and sacrificially: God owns everything, and we manage His resources. Giving is an act of faith and trust in response to His grace. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).
Church is an “all y’all thing”: A healthy church involves every member playing a vital role. Romans 12 describes the church as one body with many parts, each contributing to growth and love.
We seek to know and grow our spiritual gifts: God gives unique gifts to every believer for the common good. As we mature, we learn how to use our talents and experiences for His purposes.
Sacrifice is normal: Instead of asking, “How does this church meet my needs?” we ask, “How can I meet the needs of others?” Philippians 2 urges us to count others more significant than ourselves.

10: We Are the Light of the World

Our mission statement says we seek to be authentic followers of Jesus who live for the glory of God and the good of our world. This simple statement contains two enormous goals:

A vertical aspect, focusing on proclaiming God’s name throughout all creation (Psalm 67).
A horizontal aspect, focusing on making a difference for human flourishing on earth (Romans 12:9-21).

We need both to fully embrace the mission given to us in the Bible. We should always sense a spiritual thrust upward to glorify our God and outward to serve and reach new people (John 3:16). So, we gather to worship the Lord each week and then scatter to be salt and light in our city and world.

We want to “go make a difference” in our world in the name of the Triune God we love and worship. We seek to be a church where each person seizes the opportunity to be a life-giving presence in our community.

Jesus said,

“You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

This means we want to do good for its own sake (Jeremiah 29:4-7), specifically to love and serve the least, the lost, the lonely, and the left out through ministries of mercy and compassion (Matthew 25).

While we want to be a blessing in all kinds of ways that benefit our world, we recognize that the gospel is the greatest good we can offer. Jesus “came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). As Christ-followers, evangelism should always be at the forefront of our mission. All of this is grounded in God’s command to love your neighbor as yourself. We surely want everyone to receive the amazing grace of God that we have come to know and trust and love.

Practical Ways This Works Out:

We minister within our context:
We seek excellence at every point that a guest experiences us. If we don’t do things with excellence and consistency, they won’t trust us when we invite them into conversations about doctrine, service, suffering, or worship.
Sundays are viewed as the best opportunity to influence the greatest number of people.
We place high value on the quality of Sunday mornings as the “front door” to life at Redemption.
We are all called to “missions”:
Mission is something we all live with intentionality and purpose in our everyday lives. While some are called to go overseas as “missionaries” (and we support such endeavors), we don’t outsource our calling.
We value mission trips, support missionaries, and invest in church planting to see all peoples reached with the gospel.
We invest in all kinds of good in our world:
In a sense, all of life is missional as we live as the hands and feet of Christ.
We encourage, offer compassion, and show mercy through practical service: feeding the poor, tutoring students, medical care, home repairs, and more.
“Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
The Gospel is the greatest good:
Evangelism is a primary calling for Christ’s church. We are sent out as gospel witnesses to Jesus and His kingdom.
Befriend friends, neighbors, coworkers, and classmates in real ways.
Share our story and the gospel with them.
Celebrate baptisms and grow towards maturity as new creations in Christ.
Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone:
When overwhelmed by the immense demand for help everywhere, we focus on small, meaningful battles of care.
Everyone has a circle of influence, and the ripple effect of our efforts makes a difference.