MISSION AND VISION STATMENTS

Our Mission

Growing the Kingdom by Making Disciples who Make Disciples

Our Vision

Reaching every home with the Gospel within a two-mile radius of the Church

Our mission statement outlines the reason for our existence and the goal of our ministry.  Lovelace Baptist Church is here to be growing the Kingdom by making disciples who make disciples. We believe this is simply another way of stating the Biblical mission of the Church which is the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-48: John 20:21-21; Acts 1:8).

What is the gospel?

We are great sinners and Christ is a great Savior.  The word gospel means good news.  The Bible teaches that the gospel is the good news about what God has done, in His unmerited grace, through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, to deliver rebellious and sinful people from His wrath and bring them into eternal life through faith alone in Christ alone.

The gospel is not only the power of God to save us by grace it is also the power of God to change us by grace. The entirety of the Christian life is centered around the gospel and its ongoing implications for our convictions, character, and conduct.

To say it very simply, the gospel can be summarized in these two affirmations; we are great sinners and Christ is a great Savior.

What is a disciple?

Forgiven followers of Jesus who are growing to become like Him. When a person trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, they become a disciple.  A disciple is a forgiven follower of Jesus who is growing to become like Him.  In the Bible, the words disciple and Christian are synonymous, and every Christian is a disciple.

True disciples are marked by lives of abiding in Christ and His Word (Johns 8:31), loving one another as Jesus has loved them (John 13:34-35), and bearing much fruit to the glory of God (John 15:8).

How are disciples made?

God's Spirit plus God's Word plus God's people plus time.  God not only commissions us to make disciples but tells us how this is to be done.  The basic ingredients that go into making disciples are God's Spirit, God's Word, people, and time. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God, the gospel, through the ministry of the people of God, the Church, over time to bring people to become forgiven followers of Jesus and grow to become like Him.

Our aim is that this Biblical process of prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit, the sharing of God's Worx, the ministry of all of God's people, and patience over time will permeate our ministry as a Church and we become a place and people where disciples are made, matured, and multiplied.