JESUS

Vision

Our Vision is

‘to be a transformed people who transform the world’

The power of possibilities

Stating our vision upfront can feel very scary. Some might even say that it is presumptuous to write down the things that we are believing God will do in us and through us. But we think we are in good company. Abraham heard the promises of God and faced the facts but

he still believed! The Bible calls that faith and without faith it is impossible to please God. As we receive and experience the perfect love of God that drives out all fear, we can actively respond with believing faith.

For this reason, here at GodFirst we like to think of possibilities’. A possibility is not a plan. A plan is achievable in our own strength, but a possibility is a sketch of a new future that requires faith to believe that the God of the impossible will step in.

What you are about to read are the possibilities that we believe God has asked us to believe Him for.

Our vision

 

“To be a transformed people who transform the world”

We want GodFirst to be a church where people encounter God, become
part of a family and are trained, equipped and sent to transform the world.

Our deep desire is to be a grace filled loving community who know that they belong to their loving Heavenly Father as royal sons and daughters, citizens of Heaven.  From deep security we will go into our neighbourhoods and the nations filled with the Holy Spirit as ambassadors who bring Heaven to Earth.

We dream of being a Spirit-filled, diverse, and influential church marked by love, hospitality, joy, and unity — a people who carry God’s transforming presence everywhere, every day, to everyone.

This means raising up disciples who think and live like Jesus and shine His love in to our families, neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces and nations.

In summary we want to…

  • Be a church who are walking with the Holy Spirit as their friend, pulsating with His transforming presence and surrendered to His leading.
  • Be more than meetings or programmes—we exist to bring the Kingdom of God (healing, salvation, freedom, justice) to neighbourhoods and nations.
  • Enjoy the reality of being sons and daughters of our good Father
  • Passionately love God and the person in front of us.
  • Be devoted to God, His Word, and one another.
  • Be a deeply connected family marked by hospitality, joy, laughter, food, fun, and love.
  • Be a large, diverse, influential resourcing church.
  • Be a church where everyone is valued, equipped, and is bringing the Kingdom of God every day and everywhere.

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Leadership Structure

 
Now let’s take a look at our structure, which serves to bring the vision to life. GodFirst is spiritually led by a team of elders supported by a Senior Leadership Team (SLT) who carry the responsibility for the day-to-day leadership decisions that enable the church to move towards seeing vision become reality.
 
The structure looks like this:
Four ‘ministry departments’ are led by Deacons along with their teams.  The goal is that each of these departments contributes to the overall vision. The following gives a summary of the emphasis for each department.  

1. Encounter  

Gathering to His Presence and Power

Ensure that GodFirst is a church where people regularly encounter God for salvation, healing and deliverance, walk with the Holy Spirit, hear the Father’s voice, know the victory of Jesus and live surrendered lives connected to Him.

 

2. Family :

A deeply connected family

Ensure GodFirst is a church where all people experience a deep sense of unconditional love, belonging, value and honour that is expressed through friendship, connection and community… You cannot know everybody, but everybody can be known.

3. Transformation 

Learning to think and live like Jesus
Ensure GodFirst is empowering, training and equipping every believer to live as a disciple who is making disciples.
 

 

4. Sent 

Scattering to bring heaven to earth, save the lost, love the poor and transform the world.

Ensure that GodFirst know and function as a sent (apostolic) people who bring transformation to every sphere of society they find themselves in. They will make sure we are a church that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and go to our neighbours and the nations to bring Heaven to Earth. This will include seeing the lost saved, the poor loved, the captives set free and the world transformed.

Enabling Departments

The four ministry departments along with their Deacons are supported by the enabling departments led by the Operations Deacon, Governance Deacon and an SLT Facilitator.

Our Kingdom Culture

Culture is all about what it will feel like on the journey and here at GodFirst we have been very intentional about our culture and what we want it to increasingly become.

The culture we are journeying towards is:

Freedom

 Living from approval, not for approval as a child of God.

Faith

 Fearless Christianity.

Generosity

 Receive, enjoy and release God’s abundance.

Authenticity

 Shine with integrity, truth and honesty.

Honour

 Releasing life by glorifying God and recognising the value in myself and others.

Our aim is to bring something of this Kingdom culture, this atmosphere of heaven to everything we do and everywhere we go.

Getting Really Practical

4 ways to connect at GodFirst:

1.      Sundays:

Join us on Sundays.

2.      Relational Circles:

This is the place you will do life together, grow and connect. We want to be a community not just a crowd which means moving people from ‘rows to circles’. You cannot know everyone, but everyone can be known.

3.      Serve:

Serving moves you from attending to participating, from consuming to contributing. We always say make friends and settle in first but then play your unique part. Email or call the office for more information -  hello(at)godfirst.church 

4.      Give: 

Jesus said it is better to give than receive (Acts 20:35) and it really is. We would encourage you to give your time, talents and treasure to see the vision come to life.