Heritage Family Church

CORE VALUES

1. Life-Giving Relationships - Loving people well! It is our conviction that the kingdom of God flows along the lines of relationships: our relationship with the Father through the Son, our relationship with our families, and with one another. We believe that love is a command, not a suggestion, an action, not a feeling, the primary evidence of our life in Christ, and that to love as Christ loved is impossible with man but not with God. All things are possible with God! It is His mighty power working in and through us that enables us to love and lay down our lives for one another.

2. A Pure Gospel - There are only three things we can do with the gospel of the kingdom. We can receive, reject it, or reduce it. A received gospel produces believers. A rejected gospel is for the unbeliever. But a reduced gospel produces make believers. We fully embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ and the apostles. The gospel is truly "good news" when it is primary and pure. For then it is powerful to accomplish what only the gospel can accomplish...the kingdom of heaven on earth!

3. Passionate Prayer and Worship - Jesus said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." We believe in all things by prayer! It is our belief that the miraculous happens and the impossible is accomplished in an atmosphere of faith and fervent prayer and worship. More than anything else Heritage is known as a people in whom the presence and power of God resides and who desire to see his kingdom come in hearts, homes, the church, the marketplace, and the world. We are committed to corporate as well and closet prayer and we long to see a great revival that will only happen as we learn to pray.

4. Excellence - Believing the scripture that says, "When you speak, speak as if you are speaking the very words of God. And when you serve, serve with the strength God provides...", it is our great desire to honor God in all we do through a spirit of excellence. The Bible records that "Daniel had a most excellent spirit..." and that affected everything he did. We value an excellent spirit!

5. Marriage and family - We uphold the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman; this is referred to as a biblical household. God created marriage to be a blessing and a joy and for a very specific purpose, "that he might have a godly seed." Marriage and family are precious and holy in the sight of God and must be highly elevated as the norm in the life of the believer. We fully embrace the scriptures that proclaim that "children are a blessing from the Lord, and blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." Heads of households (mostly fathers, sometimes single mothers) are called by God to lead the family spiritually in worship, prayer and Bible study. We provide resources for families to help them in this calling. With this in mind, we also uphold the sanctity of being single for the sake of service in the kingdom. Though remaining single is the exception, there are those who are called by God and have scriptural support to remain single for the sake the gospel. We embrace this call to celibacy and recognize the single person as a biblical household. It is our belief that those who are single should be integrated into all aspects of church family life.

6. Generational Joining - At Heritage we are joining the generations to build a lasting heritage. The scripture says, "He who walks with the wise becomes wise but a companion to fools suffers harm." We embrace the biblical mandate of "togetherness" and believe we are much better together than apart. This philosophy is a golden thread that runs through all that we do. Whether it's infants with their mothers and fathers or the children and youth with the aged grandparent, something special and very real happens in the exchange of the generations. It is a portion of heaven on earth!

7. Missions - While we realize the mission field is all around us and that we are ambassadors and our homes are embassies that represent a kingdom not of this world, we also teach, support, and participate in missions on foreign soil. Not only are we going but we are raising a generation who will go to touch the four corners of the earth with the gospel of the kingdom. As much as possible, we advocate family mission trips where entire families go and serve together or fathers/mothers and/or children serve together.

8. Biblical Worldview - The evangelical church is losing somewhere between 75% and 85% of its young people to the world after their freshman year of college or university life. This is primarily because the fathers, the family, and the church are not equipping a generation to think like Christians. Many, if not most educational institutions are apathetic or even hostile to biblical worldview and our young men and women find themselves ill equipped and prepared to combat worldly ideologies and philosophies that are antithetical to scripture. We are committed to equipping fathers and families with the necessary tools and encouragement to prepare their children to think through the grid of scripture.

9. Fun and Adventure - At Heritage we value discovering more and more of God's boundless creation. God is good and all that He created is good. "The earth is the Lord's and everything therein"! There is joy and adventure in carrying out the biblical mandate to take dominion and make disciples. It is of biblical importance that we enjoy the journey as we embrace the great adventure of seeing his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It is simply imperative that we learn to love, laugh, and enjoy life together.