Putting our ethos and values in black and white

The following statement attempts to summarise what it is the church stands for and is designed to stand alongside the covenant (which is still in the process of being agreed).

Bromley Baptist Church – ethos and values

• We are a Christ-centred community believing Jesus to be God in the flesh, believing his death and resurrection to be the source of our salvation and new life, knowing him to be Lord of our lives as individuals and as a church.
• We are a church of the Bible holding to the evangelical Christian faith as expressed in the ancient creeds and the Evangelical Alliance basis of faith.
• We are a church of the Spirit believing that all believers need to be filled and go on being filled with God’s Spirit, growing in his fruit (Galatians 5:22-23) and being helped to discover and exercise the gifts God has given them.
• We are a Baptist church practicing believer’s baptism on profession of faith and a desire to be a disciple of Jesus and encouraging full participation by all members in the decision-making life of the church.
• We are a covenant community, bound together by a commitment to follow Jesus and walk together in love. Membership of our church is via agreement with our covenant and annual commitment to it at our covenant renewal service and is expressed most fully every time we break bread together.
• We are partners in God’s mission, each sent to live out the gospel in our daily lives, making Jesus known through what we do, how we treat others and what we say. We commit our resources and those of the church to the creative and loving proclamation of the gospel in our town and across the world.

Our core values: We seek to be a community like those modeled to us in the New Testament in Acts 2:42-47, Colossians 3:1-17, Ephesians 4:11-16 and Philippians 2:1-18. In particular we are committed to:

• Being an inclusive fellowship – all people are welcome to participate fully in the life of the church regardless of age, sex, ethnic background or educational attainment; each individual will be equally valued and enabled to participate in the life of the church to the fullest extent possible.
• Loving one another – we aim to grow in relationships, recognizing that it is through one another that we encounter God and are strengthened to live for him a complex world.
• Seeking the blessing of our neighbours – we want to share the good news of Jesus in such a way that many will come to faith and even more will feel the benefit; we want to do good to our neighbours because we follow a God who indiscriminately does good to everyone.
• Caring for creation – we believe we need to be good stewards of all God’s creation. This will include creative and mission-focused use of our buildings and prayerful use of all the resources he has entrusted to us.
• Creative and relevant expressions of community that nurture existing disciples and attract others to Jesus.