The Twelve Mission Theses

1. We believe, teach, and confess that God’s mission (the Missio Dei), which belongs to Him and His love for the world, centers in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 3:16-17). 

2. We believe, teach, and confess that God’s love has given His apostolic authority to Christ to carry out the mission to administer forgiveness of sins and eternal life to the whole world (Jn. 17:1-3; Lk. 4:18-19; 24:45-49; Mt. 28:18-20). The truth, …freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith, is Christianity’s central teaching and all other doctrines are antecedent or consequent. 

3. We believe, teach, and confess that all baptized in Christ are co-heirs and co-associates with Christ and participate in God’s mission in relation to, and through Him alone (1 Cor. 1:9; 3:1-23). 

4. We believe, teach, and confess that the Missio Dei is the primary lens through which we read the Scriptures, and which determines our mission being, purpose, and witness, individually and corporately (self-governing congregations) as a fellowship of the baptized in Christ (John 17). 

5. We believe, teach, and confess that just as God the Father sent (apostello) His Son Jesus into the world, Jesus sends all believers into the world to “seek and save the lost” (Jn. 20:21-23; Lk.19:10). 

6. We believe, teach, and confess that the Lord tells us by word and example that the Gospel must be sent to the unsaved (the lost) for them to hear and be saved (Romans 1:16; 10:14-17) and that the unsaved (the lost) will not somehow find their way to church in order to hear the Gospel. 

7. We believe, teach, and confess that the divine sending includes the sending of the Holy Spirit to empower the sent into their everyday world and lives to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). 

8. We believe, teach, and confess that the Lord continues to call His church from the nations (Una Sancta) around the world to work mutually in sending and receiving “laborers for the harvest” until that day when our Lord’s mission is complete (Ephesians 4:1-7; Matthew 9:35-10:1). 

9. We believe, teach, and confess that all matters of ritual, programs and practice(s) are not the essential core of God’s mission nor simply mere performance(s) or the presence of liturgical, ministry or missional exercises and activities (Lk. 24:45-47; Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Cor. 1:18-31). 

10. We believe, teach, and confess that the focus of the church’s sent-ness and ministry(ies) is on God’s love and mission (sending) to the whole world through Christ and not on institutional maintenance, survival, purity, or our own interests (Matthew 16:17-19; John 15:12-13; 2 Cor. 5: 18-20; 1 John 4). 

11. We believe, teach, and confess that the mission of the church is driven and empowered by the Gospel of Christ alone and Scripture alone, God’s strong Word, as the sole authority for our mission, teaching, witness, and confession and not by legalism, individualism, separatism, and clericalism, nor by any human authority, power, centralization, control, or persuasion, or any hierarchy (Romans 1:16; John 5:39; 17:17-19; Gal. 5:1). 

12. We believe, teach, and confess God gives His church a wide variety of gifts and people for the Missio Dei with unique contributions of people of all ethnic backgrounds in the culture of our life together as we live under Christ in mutual love and trust (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12; John 13:14-17; 15:12).