What We Believe

We value, desire, and strive to being a people passionate about knowing Jesus – Philippians 3:7‐10. Knowing the person of Jesus, as revealed in the Bible, and having a deep, intimate, growing, abiding relationship with Him is the most valuable possession a person can have. And pursuing this kind of relationship with Him is the highest pursuit a person can be dedicated to.

We value, desire, and strive to be people engaged in empowered prayer together — Matt 21:22 Acts 1:14 Our prayers together are powered by the Holy Spirit when we pray out of our anguish, out of our need for God and out of our passion for God’s purposes. Prayer is the lifeline for all of us to enter into the very presence of God, the weapon against our common enemy, the fuel by which we can do what God commands us to do and the glue that sticks us all together in unity.

We value, desire, and strive to be a people united in the essential truth of two things:

The Gospel – 2 Cor 5:18‐19, Eph 2:8‐9

We embrace the essential truth of who Jesus is, why He came, what He did and how we are saved by grace through faith in Him, the Gospel.

The Church – Matt 16:18, 1 Cor 12:13, John 17: 11‐22 Being united around the essential truth of the gospel, we are then united together with Jesus through the Holy Spirit into His Body. We are united in our understanding of purpose, design, ordination and command as the people of God, which is the Church.

We value, desire, and strive to be a people connected with each other in Gospel centered missional communities called Community Groups — Acts 2:42. We all exist in God’s grace, and so we walk together in transparent, loving, forgiving and missional communities in the grace and reconciliation of the Gospel. Living life together through real issues about real life in real time, praying, connecting, growing in the Bible and locking arms in missional life together.

We value, desire, and strive to be a people obedient in Multiplying Disciple‐Making — Matt 28:19‐20. Jesus commanded all of us who are saved by Him and follow Him to “GO” into the world and make disciples who follow Him. This is the eternal purpose and eternal design for His church. So, we desire to live lives that are well equipped and fully deployed into the world to change it by engaging people into becoming multiplying followers of Jesus.

We affirm the bibles declaration of the Believers’ Priesthood — 1 Cor 12‐14, Eph 2:10; 1 Peter 2:5‐9 Every believer in Jesus, who is saved by grace through faith, is supernaturally gifted for the mission of Jesus. Every believer, no matter the length of time a believer, is a member of the royal priesthood with a life calling to the mission of disciple‐making prepared in advance, for him or her, by God. We strive to affirm those callings and support them by equipping people to lead others to Jesus. To be active as personal disciple‐makers, leaders of missional communities (called community groups or other missional communities), leaders of ministry teams as well as other varied expressions of missional life; all to prepare people for their unique calling to serve Jesus.

We value, desire, and strive to be a people who looks to Gospel centered sacrificial leadership within the Church – 1 Cor 16:15‐16; Eph 4:11‐15; Heb 13:17 God has given gifted leaders to His church. These gifts of leadership are given to the Church, not only in the past, but in the present and future. These gifts can be found in Ephesians chapter 4 and they are given to the church for a specific reason – to equip, or in modern terms, train people for the work of serving Jesus on mission.

These leaders can be Elders, staff people, Home Group shepherds or those in other areas of service that require leaders. In the book of Hebrews, we are encouraged to look to those leaders in a submissive way, in unity, with joy, work alongside them and allow them to lead, as they are held to a higher standard by God for what they do, how they lead and in what direction they lead and thereby carry an extra weight.

The people that God calls to lead others among the people of Stonewater Fellowship are extremely important. Elders, Pastors, leaders and teachers must meet the biblical qualifications as set forth in the books of 1st Timothy and Titus. This indicates that those leaders are to follow the Apostle Paul’s example of being authentic, forthright, steadfast, hardworking and sacrificial to the best of their ability under grace.