Our Mission
Setting People F. R. E. E. to Follow Jesus
We are…
Found for Finding the Lost
Released for Releasing the Captives
Embraced for Embracing God and Others
Equipped for Equipping Others
Our mission is simply a statement about God’s intention for us as the people of God at Kingsburg Covenant Church. It’s what He wants to do in us and what He wants us to be doing with Him. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus clearly spelled out the mission for His work on Earth: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” — Jesus, Luke 4:18-19
We hear the theme of our mission resonating withing the words spoken by our King. Our mission statement reflects His. Seems appropriate, doesnt’ it? Being called to follow Jesus, we can’t help but follow His lead of finding, releasing, embracing and equipping others! So our mission is summed up with one word: FREE…
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. — Galatians 5:1
What God Wants For You
This is reflected in the first word of each of the 4 mission statements in F.R.E.E.:
God has a special name for you. In Isaiah 62:11-12 we read: See, your Savior comes! See, His reward is with Him, and His recompense accompanies Him. They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord and you will be called Sought After.
Did you catch it? His name for you is “Sought After.” That’s why Jesus made the impossible journey from heaven to earth. He came looking for His lost children. He came looking for you. He said so Himself. In Luke 19:10 Jesus said:“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
And in John 1:12 we read these powerful words: To all who receive [Jesus], to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
Your Christian life began when Jesus found you.
The gift of release is meant for every Christian.
In 2 Peter we read: They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
We can all think of things that have mastered us, can’t we? Some are mastered by their financial debts, some are mastered by their anger, some are mastered by pornography, some are mastered by worry, some are mastered by the lies they believe. Enslaved, imprisoned, trapped, ensnared, entangled, bound — call it what you will, we are all in the need of release.
That’s why we need someone to break us out of our prisons and set us free. And that’s where God comes in. It was His plan to rescue us from the very beginning. The Word of God declares:
GOD met me more than halfway, He freed me from my anxious fears…. GOD pays for each slave’s freedom; no one who runs to Him loses out. Psalm 34:4, 22 (The Message)
Jesus came to set us free from whatever is mastering us. He came to bind up the broken hearted and set the captives free. The releasing power of Christ sets us on a course of healthy spiritual growth.
Jesus came to earth to embrace you with the unfathomable, the inconceivable, and the totally unexpected love of God. In 1John 3:1 we read:
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
It’s pretty clear, isn’t it: God isn’t stingy with His love. Some people grew up in homes where there was a famine of the phrase, “I love you.” They knew their parents loved them, but they rarely heard it from their lips. Not so with God.
He’s not reserved in telling you He loves you.
The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? That the Creator of all things, the Lord over the whole universe chooses to be with you, takes great delight in you, quiets your anxious thoughts with His love and then, wonder of wonders, is so full of joy when He thinks about you that He can’t help Himself–He has to start singing. Love songs from the lips of the Giver of Life. Love songs meant just for you.
But God isn’t satisfied just telling you He loves you. He demonstrated it. John tells us in 1 John 4:10:
This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That’s how much God wants to embrace you. Will you fall into His arms?
Ephesian 2:10 says: For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
God created you for significance, and He’ll equip you for it.
IT’S FOR YOUR EQUIPPING…
THAT THE WRITER OF HEBREW PRAYS FOR EVERY CHRISTIAN: May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Heb. 13:20-21)
• THAT GOD GIVES YOU HIS WORD: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
• THAT GOD GIVES YOU HIS GRACE: And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
• THAT GOD GIVES YOU HIS HOLY SPIRIT: Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts. (Exodus 35:30-31)
• THAT GOD GIVES YOU HIS GIFTS: There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. (1 Cor. 12:4-5)
• THAT GOD GIVES US EACH OTHER: And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)
The first word in each line of our vision is what God wants for you and every one of His Children:
God wants you to be… FOUND, RELEASED, EMBRACED and EQUIPPED. God want to set you FREE!
But His mission doesn’t end there. KEEP READING.
How God Wants To Use YOU
(And every Christian in His Church)
God wants to use all of the blessings that He has poured into your life to bless others. You are set FREE by Him FOR a purpose. The word “FOR” in all four mission statements drives the Christian’s life to the right. So you are…
Of His own mission, Jesus declared in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor.”
Jesus spoke these words at the beginning of His ministry. At the end of His ministry, He gave this command to his disciples in Mark 16:15: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
The story doesn’t end when we are found by Jesus because His mission now becomes our mission. When you really understand what it was like to be lost without hope and without God, and then experience the power of being found by Jesus, you want to join His search and rescue team.
In Proverbs 24:11-12 God tells us: Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?
When you are released by Jesus, you rarely say, “I didn’t notice,” when it comes to your awareness of people in need of rescue. You see it in their actions, you see it in their eyes. You know the dungeon they’re in because it used to be your dungeon. It was where you once lived and you hated it. You know what they are staggering toward, and God is calling you to rescue them with His help.
Jesus came to embrace you with a love the world could never know or imagine. And pouring that love into you, He empowers you to embrace God and others.
That’s what lies behind the Great Commandment. Jesus said the greatest goal in life we could ever pursue is this: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27
God told Joshua to tell His people:
…Be vigilant in keeping the Commandment and the Revelation that Moses the servant of GOD laid on you: Love GOD, your God, walk in all His ways, do what He’s commanded, embrace Him, serve Him with everything you are and have.” Joshua 22:5 (Message) You can only embrace God like that if you have been embraced by Him first.
And about embracing others, Paul wrote to the Ephesians:
Christ brought us together through His death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Ephesians 2:16 (Message) He also wrote this: Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2
Jesus made the invisible God visible and took His spoken love and made it tangible. He wants to do the same today through you and me.
Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us: It was He (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Out of His grace, God gives churches apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip His people for His service. And when you begin to serve, God will give you opportunities to train others up to do the same.
In the Book of Exodus, we are told the story of Bezalel who was filled with the Holy spirit who gave him skills, abilities, and knowledge to make the tabernacle and all it’s furnishings. Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit also gave him and his partner, Oholiab, the ability to teach others. They were to train others to do the work God equipped them for. They were to pass on to others what God had invested in them. In Titus chapter 2, Paul tells Titus to teach the older men and older women so that they in turn could train those younger than themselves to serve God. God never equips us for our own edification. It’s always for the purpose of doing His will here on earth and equipping others to do the same. That’s how God’s work is multiplied and how His glory is magnified.