A seeker is anyone who is striving to grow closer to God. The Bible says, "His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him � though he is not far from any one of us" (Acts 17:27). We are all trying to find God. It's in our make-up. We want everyone who is seeking to find Him and become all that He has planned for them to be.

A fully functioning follower:

Matures through discipleship to evangelize

Magnifies God through praise and worship to exalt

Maintains Relationships through fellowship to encourage

Ministers through servanthood to edify

MEANING Statement (What We Are About)
God's church is built on Jesus Christ. He is our One True foundation. From this Foundation we are formed. From this formation flow four functions.

Our One Foundation is Jesus Christ, The Matchless Lamb Of God (I Cor. 3:11; Matt. 7:24-27).

The Four Functions of the church are:

Discipleship (Matthew 28:18-20)

Praise & Worship(Rom. 15:5-13; John 4:24)

Fellowship (Acts 2:42-47)

Servanthood (I Peter 4:7-11)

MINISTRY Statement (How We Will Accomplish It)

We will accomplish:

Discipleship through our Discipleship Development Diamond
Praise & Worship through our Worship Ministry
Fellowship through our Cell Ministry and Fellowship Calendar
Servanthood through our Servanthood ministry

VISION Statement (Where We Are Going)

The metropolitan church of Christ will be a place where Christ is the foundation of all we do. We believe if Christ is the foundation he sets the size, structure, strength, and stability of our church. She will be a place of full-blown, high energy, God-honoring praise and worship. She will exhibit the power of the Holy Spirit as lives are changed through discipleship. She will fulfill the great commission through making disciples by reproduction both individually and in small groups. She will not just be a friendly church but a church where true friendships can be developed. People will come to fulfill their true purpose through serving others with their time, talent, and treasure. When people come they will know they have encountered the bride of Christ because she is full of grace and truth. The people are willing and eager to forgive, but just as eager to hold one another accountable for behaviors that will harm themselves or others. Healing and health will flow from her because Christ is there. Marriages will be healed, Parental relationships will be healed, economic ignorance will be healed, and love will be the rule.

CORE VALUES* (What We Are Passionate About)

Passion: Fired with intense feeling; fervor; zeal: Enthusiastic devotion to or powerful interest in carrying out. A subject or activity that inspires lively involvement.

1. We Value The One Foundation Who Is Jesus Christ
We passionately strive to build everything we do in word, thought, and deed on the foundation of Jesus Christ the Blessed Lamb of God. He is God�s Grace and Truth. Therefore we trust in His grace and bow to His Lordship. We encourage our members to minister with grace in their hearts and live in accordance with his Lordship. We believe this foundation guarantees ministry life, longevity, excellence, and efficiency. (Matt. 7:24-29)

2. We Value Developing Fully Functioning Followers of Christ
We believe passionately in helping people develop into what God would have them to be with Jesus as our model of perfection and completeness through a base-by-base process. We believe this is Metropolitan�s primary reason for existence as a church. (Ephesians 4:1-16)

3. We Value The Four Functions (discipleship, praise & worship, fellowship, and servanthood.)
We believe the four functions of a child of God are discipleship, praise & worship, fellowship, and servanthood. We passionately believe God created every person on this planet to fulfill these functions in their daily lives. (Acts 2:38-47)

4. We Value Discipleship
Our primary function in the world is to fulfill the great Commission. That is go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of The Father, and of the Son, and of The Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the teachings of Jesus. Therefore we strive to bring people in through evangelism , grow people through discipleship, and send people to do missions work. We believe that in order to accomplish this we must embrace ethnic diversity (all the world) and targeted evangelism (our personal world). (Matt. 28:18-20;II Tim. 2:2)

5. We Value Praise & Worship
We yearn to bow down and acknowledge God's supreme value and worth in our personal lives and in the corporate worship of our church. We hunger to worship God with all our being (emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual) in a way that is Biblical, culturally relevant to the worshippers, and witnessing to seekers (Rom. 12:1-2; John 4:24).

6. We Value Cells (Small Group Ministry)
We passionately believe people need a church where they can find friends, not just friendly church. We believe a cell-based ministry is the only way we can accomplish this because it depends on everyone ministering to everyone. Therefore we ask all members to faithfully participate in our cells to reach the lost, develop Christian friendships, worship God, study the Bible, participate in true community, and minister to one another�s needs (Acts 2:44-46).

7. We Value Servanthood Excellence
Since God gave his best (the Savior), we seek to honor him by maintaining a high standard of excellence in all our ministries, and activities . We are dedicated to using our time (availability), talent (ability), and treasure (money) to glorify God through serving one another and the community through targeted, purposeful outreach, counseling, teaching, and works of service. (Col. 3:23-24; I Peter 4:10-11).

8. We value commitment and accountability
The church is in a war against the devil. God calls faithful and committed people to do His work. We passionately believe that only those who can be depended upon and held accountable for doing their part, need to be in this fight. (II Tim. 2:2)

9. We value Lost People
Christ sacrificially valued lost people and strayed sheep. Therefore we will pursue, win, and disciple our unchurched, non-churched, and lost friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors by any godly means necessary (Luke 19:10; I Corinthians 9:19-27).

10. We value Godly, Biblical, visionary, servant-driven, team leadership
We passionately believe God has ordained leadership to be Biblical. That means we respect the wisdom of God in the ordination of Jesus Christ as the only head and authority in the church, elders as shepherds of the church, and deacons as servants of the church, and ministering evangelists as those who set things in order in the church, and ministry servants (male and female) to carry out different delegated works. We believe the ministering evangelists should be supported by the church in a way that is makes his ministry not a burden emotionally, practically, or financially. We believe God�s pattern for vision in scripture is to give vision to one visionary leader and then provide others who catch the vision and make it happen . We passionately believe all authority is Christ�s but that He gives leaders functional authority to serve. And we passionately believe that the model for effective leadership in scripture is a team led by a visionary leader who leads by word and example. (Neh. 2:11-18; Exodus 18:13-27; Titus 1:5; Hebrews 13:7;17;I Cor. 9:1-14)

11. We Value A Winning Attitude (enthusiasm, optimism, and persistence)
We passionately believe that to be winners for Christ we must be enthusiastic, optimistic, and persistent in how we think, talk, and perform our God-given tasks and live our lives. We strive to be enthusiastic because it creates momentum, optimistic because it maintains hope, and persistent because it�s the only way to achieve greatness! negativism is discouraged because it breeds the opposite. (Phil 4:11-13;Phil. 2:5; Phil 3:12-14)

12. We value Bible-centered preaching/ teaching (expository)
We passionately believe that the Holy Spirit of God gave an original and authentic message in the Bible which is eternally applicable to contemporary people. Therefore we preach and teach biblical expository messages in such a way that people can hear the original message and apply it to their contemporary needs. We believe that when people hear and do the Word of God the Holy Spirit brings about life-change. (Neh. 8:8; Is. 55:9-11; Ps. 1:1-5; II Tim 4:1-8)

13. We value Creativity and Innovation
We will constantly strive to be inviting to a contemporary audience, culturally relevant, seeker-sensitive, and member inspiring in how we market and do ministry. Our job is to attain maximum ministry effectiveness for Christ; not to maintain the traditions of men (I Chron. 12:32; Acts 13:36; Matt. 15:1-9).

14. We value Prayer
We rely on private and corporate prayer in the conception, planning, and execution of all the ministries and activities of this church (Matt. 7:7-11; II Chron. 7:13-16).

14. We value Lost People
We desire to seek and save the lost. (Matt. 18:11;Luke 15:1-32; Matt. 16:24-26; II Cor. 4:3)

15. We value Team Ministry
We work together in teams to accomplish effective, profitable ministry for the Lord. (II Cor. 6:1; Eph. 4:11-16;Ecc. 4:12;I Cor. 12:12-26).

16. We value YOU!
There is nothing more important in this world to God than you. (John 3:16; Romans 5:8)).

*These are actual and aspirational values. While some are not yet our values, we are working hard at making them our core values.

for more information contact us at info@cochristmetro.com

Metropolitan Church of Christ: 1250 E. 223rd St, Suite 119, Carson, CA 90745-2035