Our Values

Because we are inspired by the revelation of God to us in Scripture, the values governing our work include the following:

We value being transformed into the likeness of Christ

• We honor Jesus as the true agent of transformation in ourselves and in children as we live a life of obedience to him.
• We treasure personal engagement with God’s Word and his Holy Spirit seeing these as essential to every believer’s growth as a Christ-follower.

We value the Great Commission

• We are committed to disciple-making, rather than only evangelistic seed-planting, seeking to create ministry with relational follow-up and long-lasting impact.
• We share a passion to see the peoples of all nations coming into relationship with Christ as Savior and King; recognizing that billions (many of them children) do not yet know him.

We value families

• We recognize families as God’s ideal institution for fostering the spiritual growth of children and we acknowledge the need of Christian families for training, encouragement and support in raising their children to be lifelong followers of Jesus.
• We value outreach to children that includes their believing or unbelieving families and strategies that seek to help the family as a whole to grow closer to Christ.

We value children

• As created in the image of God.
• In context: We are committed to sensitivity to every child’s context (family, crisis issues, culture), and to caring for the child as a whole persion (spiritual, physical, emotional, mental).
• As kingdom examples: We value learning to be more like Christ as we watch the attitudes of children: humility, trust, joy, willingness to get along, simplicity, eagerness to learn, etc.
• As active participants in the Church: We see children, themselves, as genuine members and invited participants in the Body of Christ, with the potential to be agents of transformation in their worlds, as Christ transforms them.

We value the local family of Faith

• We value local/national ownership of evangelism and discipleship initiatives.
• We recognize local churches as God’s primary institution for growing the Church (global).
• We see believers (lay people) in local churches as those who have the greatest potential to reach and disciple the people of their community.
• We recognize that where there is no local expression of the Body of Christ, we are responsible to engage with Christian mission agencies and NGO’s working to bring Christ into unreached areas.

We value working together

• We desire to be examples of Christ’s love to the world, beginning with a commitment to love, mutual value, respect and unity among ourselves.
• We value working together, believing we can do more together than we can on our own as we submit ourselves to Christ, the head of the Church.
• We value working with others to share responsibility and provide encouragement as we obey Christ in our more personal areas of calling.
• We place precedence on our God-given mandate to work together to build the Kingdom and bring glory to God, rather than building empires for ourselves, our churches, or our organizations.

We value wise stewardship of resources

• We recognize that all resources belong to God, not ourselves.
• We recognize that each of us has something to contribute to the cause of reaching our world for Christ (gifts, resources, talents, skills, etc.).
• We acknowledge that the Body of Christ has more than enough to do whatever God leads us to do, and that God will provide us with all we need to accomplish the purposes he has for us.
• We recognize that more funds and resources are not the essential key to effective discipleship (discipleship is about people, not money).
• We recognize our potential to do much more with the resources we have already been given. 
• We refuse to allow lack of resources alone to keep us from reaching and discipling children.
• We affirm that local ministry should be funded by local believing communities, avoiding dependence on outside sources and that sustainable, ongoing ministry is dependent on such local funding.