Mission Statement
To be a church that provides...
Teaching... that challenges, encourages, and equips
Relationships... that build strong community
Outreach... that touches the world around us
Core Values
- Missions Heart
- Genuine Worship
- Prevailing Prayer
- Strategic Leadership
- Intentional Outreach
- Biblical Stewardship
- Equipping Ministries
- Growing Relationships
- Progressive Discipleship
- Building Healthy Families
Our Six G's
Because Jesus came to seek and save the lost, we feel compelled to do the same. But Jesus went beyond rescuing people from hell; He wanted to help them become fit for heaven. Through the various ministries of the church, we desire that people meet Christ and grow in their faith so that they live obediently to His commands and become conformed to His character.
The Six "G's" is our attempt to draw in broad strokes the essential "marks" of someone devoted to Christ and Ocean City Worship Center.
- Grace
- God's Glory
- Growth
- Groups
- Gifts
- Giving
If we have Participating Members living out these characteristics, we are moving towards a biblically functioning community.
"Each believer devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Grace
God's grace enables us to make a very important spiritual beginning. It's by grace - the word means "a favor we didn't earn" - that we begin the Christian life. But God's grace involves more because He was working behind the scenes long before we responded. He literally came to our planet in the person of Jesus Christ and by means of the death of Christ on the cross, He paid our crippling sin debt. He comes to each of us now, pursuing us even in our waywardness and points us in a new direction. His grace also has staying power. He persistently takes us the next step on our spiritual journey. He never gets tired of working with us and He NEVER gives up on us. That's grace.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast"
As Christ followers, we understand and have individually received Christ's saving grace. We have abandoned all attempts to earn God's favor through accomplishments of our own and find security only through Christ's sacrificial death on our behalf. In obedience to Christ's command, we have undergone water baptism as believers, giving outward witness to the inner cleansing and renewal experienced in Him.
God's Glory
God at His very nature is supernatural. Therefore He can not be limited or controlled. The minute we place God in a box, He is no longer God. With this in mind, it is our goal to seek and embrace God's presence and power in our daily lives and weekly services. We desire to know Him in His fullness as He leads us by His Spirit both personally and corporately.
"Then Moses said, 'Now show me your glory.' And the LORD said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
Growth
Growth is our ongoing response to God's grace over a lifetime. Our walk with God begins by grace and continues by grace. Unfortunately, just as people can underestimate the extent of God's work in initiating their Christian life, they can fall into the trap of thinking their work - following the rules - automatically produces spiritually maturity. When we commit to move forward we will experience the blessings of God's grace and marvel at the miracle of spiritual growth.
"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ..."
As Christ followers, we know the grace of God that saved us is only the beginning of His work in us. We gratefully respond by actively pursuing a lifelong process of spiritual growth in Christ and seek to become conformed to His image. To this end we consistently nurture our spiritual development through prayer, worship and Bible study.
We regard the Bible as the final authority in all areas that it teaches and desire to be wholly obedient to it. As Christ followers, we honestly confront areas of personal sin and engage the Holy Spirit's power in seeking to turn from sin.
We also desire to extend the grace we have received to others through personal evangelism and participation in the collective ministry of the church in our community, our country and around the world.
Groups
In the body of Christ, we serve each other in various ways. This is how God designed it. When we sit with members of a small group, someone can powerfully remind us of what we may not see - that God is working in us, that we're going to make it, that the affection of God is not just for "the world" - it's for you and me. When we're together as fellow Christ followers, someone can literally say our name and put a voice to the truth that "You, ____________, matter to God so much that He personalized His plan of salvation so there would be room for you."
"Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people"
Together we honor God's call to participate in community in order to grow in Christ-likeness, to express and receive love, and to carry out the ministry of the church. For this reason, we give priority to attending the corporate gathering of the church for the purpose of worship, teaching and participation in the sacrament of communion; and we are connected relationally to a small group of believers for the purpose of mutual encouragement, support and accountability.
Together we will:
- Pursue Christ-honoring relationships at home, within the church and in the marketplace, and are committed to pursuing the biblical pattern of reconciliation when conflict arises.
- Support the leadership of the church and are biblically submissive to it.
- Affirm and uphold the fundamental truths of Scripture and refrain from promoting other doctrines in ways that cause dissension.
Gifts
God's plan for spiritual gifts in the church looks a lot like heaven - God gave us different gifts and abilities so we would do different things and meet each other's needs. He didn't refuse to give us a particular gift because He doesn't like us - instead, He thoughtfully picks the gifts He gives each of us so that we have focus and so that we can be truly fulfilled.
Like a body with different functioning organs, our different roles and activities bring life to the church. If we become separated from each other we suffer - like a limb out of joint within a body. When God gave us the gifts of the Spirit, so we would be distinct individuals He also gave us the fruits of the Spirit, so we would work as one. Gifts used properly always testify to our unity as well as our diversity.
"We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve. If it is teaching, let him teach. If it is encouraging, let him encourage. If it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously. If it is leadership let him govern diligently. If it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully"
Together we recognize that the church is composed of interdependent members, each uniquely fitted by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of building up the body and furthering the ministry of the church.
Therefore, together we will seek to discover, develop, and deploy those God-given gifts; and they seek a place of service within the church, with the support and affirmation of the body.
Giving
In its most basic form, life simply consists of how we use our time, our giftedness, and our material resources - that is to say, all of life is stewardship. The fourth G deals with stewardship of our gifts. How we steward our time is very individualized and often highly related to the stewardship of our money. Our culture often encourages us to trade time for money... and so we work extra hard and extra long to make extra money to buy extra things which take extra time...
The remaining area of stewardship, our material resources, is for many of us the most difficult area. The Bible indicates this may also be the most important area of stewardship, since money is often the chief rival god, and materialism is nothing less than a competing theology.
One only needs to look at a few well-known verses about the impact of a person's relationship to money to understand what a powerful deterrent to spiritual growth and development it can be. For example, money can steal our heart from God (Matt. 6:21), it can keep us from serving God (Matt. 6:24), it can choke out God's work in our life and make it unfruitful (Matt. 13:44) and the love of it can lead to all kinds of evil (1 Tim. 6:10). There has been an eternal feud between God and money.
In contrast, a biblical relationship to one's material resources leads to freedom marked by contentment and to giving characterized by joyful generosity resulting in the giver experiencing the biblical truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
