Our Vision

 “We seek to live life in Christ to the fullest”

 As followers of Christ, we have received the greatest gift imaginable - “life in Christ to the fullest.”   We believe that the right response to this amazing gift is to LIVE IT in every area of our lives.

There’s a lot more to say about our vision.  To read more about it, see below.

Our Values

 Our five values are the ways God has given us to pursue our vision.  

 They are:

 +        Community – As a church, we seek to embody Jesus’ command to love one another through intentionally developing relationships.  This takes all sorts of forms, from informal friendships around Christ to structured Community Groups that meet during the week.

 +        Learning – We want to learn in a way that transforms us.  To this end, we seek to understand God’s revealed truth in scripture, and to respond to his truth with obedience.

 +        Mission – Our mission is to spread “life in Christ to the fullest” everywhere we go.  We strive to have mission as part of the identity of our church, not just something we do. 

 +        Liturgy – Liturgy describes the way we worship as a church.  As an Anglican church, we deeply value liturgy as an historic form of worship that helps us encounter the living God in body, mind, and spirit.  It also invites the participation of all worshippers. 

 +        The Holy Spirit – The work of the Holy Spirit is mysterious and expansive.  But we acknowledge that God gave the church the Holy Spirit to be the primary way that “we seek to live life in Christ to the fullest.” 

For more about each value, see below.

 If you’d like to hear a sermon on our vision and values that was preached by our Senior Pastor, Randy Forrester, click HERE.

Where Does Vision Come From?

 Vision is something that gets talked about a lot in organizations, and businesses, and certainly churches. But where does it come from?  Specifically, where does a godly vision come from?  Someone has suggested that a godly vision is something that is forged in the fires of holy discontent.  We believe this is true.  But what is holy discontent?  It is when we look around and say… “there’s gotta be something more.  This is not all that God wants… he wants more for us.”  For many of us, this is our experience of church and of the Christian life.

 But for something to truly be a godly vision, we don’t get stuck being discontent.  We don’t define ourselves by what we are not, or become disgruntled and cynical.  Instead, we allow those fires of holy discontent to birth in us a passion for something more.  And we set out in pursuit of it, in the power and leading of God’s Spirit.

 At King of Kings, we have sensed God calling us to more.  We believe He’s inviting us “further up and further in.”[1]  We believe He wants to give us a deeper experience of life in Him.

More About Our Vision Statement

“We seek to live life in Christ to the fullest.”

 The best way to explain our vision is to look at its different parts.

 “WE SEEK…”

“To live life in Christ to the fullest” is our goal.  It’s what we strive for.  But we fall short of it.  Often, our experience of life feels a lot more struggle, futility, and sometimes even death.  But, in faith, we keep seeking “to live life in Christ to the fullest.”  The Apostle Paul said it this way in Philippians 3:12 “not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”  We press on, we keep seeking to realize this vision God has given us.

“TO LIVE…”

“Life in Christ to the fullest” is a gift that’s been given us.  We didn’t earn it.  We didn’t make it happen.  We simply received it by grace, through faith.  But now, having received it, our proper response is to LIVE IT.  And by “LIVE” we mean that we are working out “life in Christ to the fullest”  in every aspect of our lives.  It’s not something that we compartmentalize into just one aspect of our lives. It’s not just the ‘church thing’ that we do on Sundays and once or twice during the week.  “Life in Christ to the fullest” should spill over into every area of our lives!  God wants every part of our lives to be filled with His life.

“LIFE…”

“Life” is a thoroughly biblical concept.  The word is everywhere in the scriptures.  It is often used to describe, not just biological life, but the essence of what God wants for us, and what he’s calling us to.  One powerful verse about ‘life’ is found in Deuteronomy 30:19: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”  God wants us to choose life in Him.  And when we do, He is glorified.  St. Irenaeus said it this way about 1800 hundred years ago: “The glory of God is man fully alive.”  When men and women receive and live out “life in Christ to the fullest,” God is glorified.

“IN CHRIST…”

The whole world is seeking life, not just Christians. We may call it happiness, health, or contentment.  But people want life.  That’s what everyone’s after.  But too often, we look for it in the wrong places.  We believe that the only place where true and unending life is found… is ‘in Christ.’  We are a Christ-centered people because we know that there’s no other place to go.  He, alone, has the words of life.  He alone can satisfy our deepest longings.

This little phrase “in Christ” is theologically loaded.  The Apostle Paul uses it over a hundred times in his letters.  According to St. Paul, our salvation (Rom 8:1), our freedom (Ga1 2:4), our hope (1 Cor 15:19), the love of God (Rom 8:39), the place where we are made alive (1 Cor 15:22), and the promise of life (2 Tim 1:1) are all found ‘in Christ.’  Being ‘in Christ’ is one of St. Paul’s favorite ways to describe the mysterious transformation that has taken place in the lives of believers.

“TO THE FULLEST…”

In John 10:10, Jesus says “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Jesus wants us to have life “to the full.”  That word “to the full” means to have life abundantly, extraordinarily, profusely.  He wants us to be spilling over with life.  And so when we say “we seek to live life in Christ TO THE FULLEST” we mean that there is no end in sight.  There is always more of his life that we can receive and live out.  He doesn’t want us to “settle for less.”  He’s drawing us “further up and further in.”  There’s always more of Himself he wants to give us.  One day, in the New Heavens and the New Earth, the fullness of life in Christ will break upon us like the dawn.  But until then, we press on towards that fullness.

More About Our Values

COMMUNITY

‘Community’ is a pretty broad word that’s tossed around a lot.  What do we mean by it?  This definition may be helpful: “Community is the embodiment of Jesus’ command to love one another, through the intentional development of relationships.”  One of Jesus’ most fundamental commands was to “love one another.”  In community we seek to live this out.  We try to embody his command to love one another.  How?  Through relationships.  Someone has described relationships as God’s “delivery system” for all his good stuff.  We believe that’s true.  For us, relationships are God’s “delivery system” for “life in Christ to the fullest.”  Because they’re so important, we want to be very intentional and purposeful about developing relationships and helping them thrive.

So what does this intentional development of relationships look like? 

It looks like spending time with each other and making sacrifices to help that happen.  Someone has said that you spell love “T.I.M.E.”  That’s true, especially in our culture of busyness.  It looks like forgiveness and reconciliation when we hurt each other (and we will hurt each other, that’s inevitable).  It looks like working out our differences in the context of a loving relationship.  It looks like sharing our resources.  In Acts 4:32-37, we see a portrait of a biblical community that shared all things in common.  There were no needy persons among them.  It looks like sharing our stories.  The Holy Spirit loves to live at the telling of our stories.  It looks like sharing our brokenness and being vulnerable.  We’re all very good at putting on the “everything’s okay face.”  But that is inauthentic and a barrier to true love. We’re all struggling with sin, temptations, wounds, and insecurities.  In a truly loving community of Christ, there’s no need to hide from each other.  In fact, sharing those things with others often brings healing.

LEARNING

By learning, we don’t simply mean something academic or intellectual.  The learning that we have in mind is “transformational learning.”  Romans chapter 12, verse 2 captures this idea well: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”  We want to learn (have our minds renewed) in a way that transforms us.  What does this kind of learning look like? We believe it has two parts: understanding and obedience.  We want to do everything we can do to understand God’s revealed truth to us in scripture.  We want to know His story from beginning to end.  We want to immerse ourselves in the bible.  We want to study it passionately.  We want to have good theology and a biblical worldview.  To do this well, we have to keep being teachable.  We can’t get stuck believing that our understanding of scripture is perfect.  The Holy Spirit always has more he wants to show us.  Transformational learning also involves obedience.  God wants us to practice what we learn.  In Luke chapter 11:27-28, a woman who is impressed with Jesus cries out: “blessed is the woman who bore you.”  Jesus responds by saying “blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."  God wants us to understand his revealed truth, his Word.  But ultimately he wants us to obey it.  Learning that transforms us involves both understanding and obedience.

MISSION

 If our VISION is to live life in Christ to the fullest, our MISSION is to spread life in Christ to the fullest.  In 2 Corinthians 2:14-16, Paul shares the idea that believers are like people spreading the aroma of Christ of everywhere.  And for those who accept it, we are the aroma of Christ that brings life.  Our mission is to spread this life-giving aroma of Christ everywhere we go.  In our neighborhoods, our work places, and social circles, and our families.  As a church, we want to spread this aroma locally and globally.  We do it through Word, the speaking of truth, as well as through Deed, loving acts of compassion.  Ultimately, mission is not something we do as a church, like a program.  Rather, it’s part of our identity.  It’s part of who we are.  We’re a missional people.  King of Kings is part of a larger group of Anglican churches called the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA).  That word ‘mission’ is not just window dressing.  The Anglican Mission in the Americas is literally the missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, a small country in Africa.  As the West becomes a darker place, losing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, these brothers and sisters in Rwanda are sending missionaries back to the West to spread the gospel in North America.  We are their missionaries!  King of Kings is part of the missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

 The amazing thing about MISSION is that by spreading life, we receive life.  We gain a deeper experience of “life in Christ to the fullest” as we are sent out in mission.  Which has more life-giving properties?  A still body of water or a pool of water which spills over and flows outward?  It is the later.  The Dead Sea is a still body of water that has no outlets (the former).  And because it has no outlets, it is dead, it can support no life.  We want to be a body which is poured into, and then pours out again.  We want our “life in Christ to the fullest” to overflow onto others.  And as that happens, we will experience more life for ourselves.

LITURGY

 Every church is called to worship God.  That is one of the primary ways “to live life in Christ to the fullest.”  But there are lots of ways to worship God.  ‘Liturgy’ describes the way we worship God at King of Kings.  We are an Anglican church, and liturgy is a rich part of our Anglican heritage that we want to hold onto, and offer to the wider body of Christ in Charlotte.  There’s a lot of depth and richness in our liturgy.  One of the things we want to do at King of Kings is make our liturgy accessible.  We want people to understand it so that through the liturgy, they may have a powerful encounter with the living God.  While there’s a lot to say about liturgy, it’s worth mentioning four things about liturgy that give a taste of its richness and depth.

 First, Liturgy is participatory.  It’s participatory because it invites the participation of all worshippers.  Liturgy actually means “the work of the people.”  So when we come together, ALL of us are doing worship, not just a small group at the front.  At various parts of our service, the whole congregation is invited to fully participate - such as corporate prayers, reading of scripture, reciting the creeds, a confession of sin, offering of our gifts, and partaking of the bread and the wine.

 Second, Liturgy is drama.  By drama, we mean that liturgy re-enacts God’s great salvation story.  This happens in at least two ways.  First, every week our worship service re-enacts major elements in the story of salvation.  For example, in Communion (also called the Eucharist), we re-enact Jesus’ death, resurrection, and coming again through our prayers and the taking of bread and wine.  The second way that liturgy re-enacts the salvation story is that we use a liturgical calendar, also call the church calendar.  So not only Sunday by Sunday, but every year we remember major events in the story of salvation.  Advent, for example, is the season right before Christmas when we prepare our hearts for the coming of the Messiah.  Pentecost is the season after Easter when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit.

 Third, Liturgy involves our bodies in worship.  We believe that good worship should involve our emotions, our minds, our spirits, but also our bodies.  Our liturgy involves all five senses.  We can taste, touch, hear, see, and smell bread and wine.  Lots of symbols and hand motions are used to aid us in our worship of God.  We use different colored fabrics and garments that speak about God’s goodness and enrich our worship.

 And finally, Liturgy is historic.  In the liturgy, often we are saying prayers that have been said for hundreds of years.  This connects us to the work of the Holy Spirit throughout history.  Many faithful believers have gone before us and offer us a richness and depth in liturgical worship that we wouldn’t be able to achieve on our own.  We say the Nicene Creed every week which connects with what Christians have believed for two thousand years.  The history of Jesus’ church is important and we want our worship to reflect that.  Liturgy helps us do this.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

 The Holy Spirit is our most important value.  It has the last word.  The Holy Spirit was given to us, by God, as the primary way in which we are “to live life in Christ to the fullest.”  The work of the Holy Spirit is mysterious and expansive.  It’s impossible to nail down all that he does in us.  But here are a few highlights of what it means to be a church which values the Holy Spirit.  It certainly won’t cover everything, but it’s a start. 

First, the Holy Spirit keeps us centered on Christ.  If we’re walking in the Spirit, we will stay truthfully anchored in Christ.  One of the Holy Spirit’s main jobs is to point to Christ.  So if you stick with the Spirit, you’ll stay centered on Christ.

 Second, the Holy Spirit empowers us.  He gives us the power to live out our other values.  If we don’t live through the Holy Spirit, we can forget about community, and learning, and mission, and liturgy.  But as we walk in the Spirit, we’ll be able to live out those values in powerful ways.  The Holy Spirit has also given gifts to God’s people which empower them “to live life in Christ to the fullest” and help others mature into that vision.

 Third, the Holy Spirit leads us.  As a church, we want to be a community that "attends to the voice of the Spirit"… deeply and frequently.  He will speak to us.  He will guide us.  He will teach us how to apply Jesus’ teaching in any given situation.  He will show us the Father’s will.

 Fourth, the Holy Spirit frees us.  Sometimes we forget about what it means to walk in the Spirit.  It seems easier to follow a set of religious rules.  But soon we find that keeping religious rules is impossible.  They make us tired, and frustrated, and weighed down by guilt.  As followers of Christ, we are freed by the Spirit from religious requirements which produce guilt.  We still pursue an ethical lifestyle of the highest degree (which we call righteousness), but we do it through the Spirit.  We overcome sin in our lives, not by rules, but by the Spirit.  Galatians 5 is an important chapter in scripture which shapes the way we understand the work of the Spirit in our lives.  The fruit in our lives comes from the Spirit not from religious observance.  

 There’s certainly more to the Holy Spirit than mentioned here.  But one thing is clear.  The only way that we can “seek to live life in Christ to the fullest” is through the Holy Spirit.

[1] This quote comes from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series.