CHURCH PLANT VISION
Here are the core convictions of ACTS CHURCH of MARICOPA and in-depth resources (sermons videos, audios, blog articles, presentation teaching series) available to read and find out more on their biblical basis and applications to the local church context. The most important facet of any church, however, is love for God and all people, and this has to be preeminent in all things church members do for God's glory:
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing [...] Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [...] So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3,8,13).
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Spontaneous Free All-Member Participation in Sunday Services
“What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26, emphasis added).
Expository Preaching
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:1-2, emphasis added).
Weekly Lord's Supper as a Fellowship Meal
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42, emphasis added).
Family-Integrated Church
“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven”” (Matthew 19:13-14, emphasis added).
Part of the Family-Integrated Churches (FIC) network, visit here.
Elder-Led Church Government
“And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed” (Acts 14:23, emphasis added).
Regulative Principle of Worship
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:8-9, emphasis added).
City Evangelism, Ongoing Discipleship, and World Mission
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”(Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis added).
Committed Formal Church Membership
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. [...] Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:12,27, emphasis added).
Excellence in New Pastor Training & Church Planting
“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus”(2 Timothy 2:2-3, emphasis added).
Reformed Theology on Salvation
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.”(John 15:16, emphasis added).