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Who We Are:
We are a local congregation of Christians who live in
Kent and its surrounding communities. Our group is
diverse with regard to professional occupations,
incomes, education and religious backgrounds. However,
one thing we share in common is our commitment to Jesus
Christ as being the Savior of all men. We identify with
Him (thus, “Christians”), preach His gospel, serve His
interests and support His work through personal,
spiritual and financial contributions.
Our mission is to promote discipleship in whatever way
is biblical, productive and necessary. The New Testament
speaks much more of “disciples” than it does
“Christians,” and this is significant. Everyone who
calls himself a “Christian” is not necessarily a
disciple of the Lord; however, everyone who is a genuine
“disciple” of the Lord must be, by necessary inference,
a Christian.
(Sadly, some have given “discipleship” a bad name,
associating it with practices and teachings that are
nowhere found in Scripture. Thus, as a matter of
clarifying who we are not: we have absolutely no
affiliation with International Churches of Christ
[a.k.a. Crossroads, or Boston Movement] or any spin-offs
of this group.)
A “disciple” in the context in which we use it means a
student of the Master: Jesus Christ. He is our only
Teacher and Lord (John 13:13); we are among His many
students. In doing so, we are following His Word (the
gospel) in order to more closely identify with the
Master (Matthew 10:24). We are certainly not the only
ones doing this, nor do we necessarily excel at this
more than others. Nonetheless, it is a fact of our
identity that we honor and worship the Lord Jesus Christ
above all else: we are His disciples. We use His Word
(the gospel of the New Testament) as the foundation for
our belief as well as the direction for our lifestyle.
We accept only those apostles whom He commissioned with
His own authority, to serve as an authority for what we
do and teach. We appeal to Him in prayer and strive to
carry out His will in our own sphere of influence.
God’s Word teaches that the body of Christ is a
spiritual organization with Christ at its head
(Ephesians 1:22-23). This means there is only one church
recognized by God (Ephesians 4:4-6), and it is comprised
of individuals, not congregations (1 Corinthians
12:12-14). Local congregations (like ours) are simply
groups of such believers who work together in teaching
others to obey God’s Word, to encourage fellow
Christians to fully obey God, and to help one another
put godly principles into practice in one’s daily life.
For more specific information on this, please click
WHAT WE BELIEVE.” |
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