A VISION OF HOPE
Fulfilling the Great Commission by raising Christ-centred disciples to plant vibrant biblical churches in Australia and all over the world.
Hope Church
Our Values
We are Christ-centred, Holy Spirit empowered, Bible based and covenantal people; a life-enriching community, who are vision driven disciple makers, leadership trainers and church planters who belong to an apostolic movement.
We believe Christ is central to who we are and what we do. This applies to each believer and the church as a whole. All that we are and all that we do is for His glory. We are committed to helping our members develop an intimate and meaningful relationship with Christ through prayer; a relationship that leads to hope, purpose and fulfilment. We emphasise the importance of submission to His Lordship under which members discover the awesome impact of letting God and His will be our first priority. As we live out our Christian life as God intends, we become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. [Colossians 1:17, Ephesians 1:22-23, Ephesians 4:13, Philippians 3:10, Matthew 6:33]
We believe in the importance of being Spirit-filled and Spirit-led. We emphasise reliance on the Holy Spirit in every facet of our personal and church life. It is through the God’s Spirit that life transformation occurs and every spiritual gift mentioned in God’s Word can be and should be manifested today. Thus, we encourage every member to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit and be empowered to expand His kingdom. It is also the Holy Spirit that reveals Christ to us and leads us. [Zechariah 4:6, Acts 1:8, Galatians 5:16-18, Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12]
We believe our faith and practice as Christians is founded and built upon biblical principles. We emphasise expository preaching and balanced comprehensive teaching so that our members may understand, live out and mature in the Christian life as God intended. Anointed expository preaching allows God’s Word to be expounded in a balanced and complete manner within its proper context to bring about life transformation. We are committed to developing a wide range of relevant teaching programmes to meet the needs of the members in the areas of Bible knowledge, Christian living and ministry. [2 Timothy 3:16-17, Nehemiah 8:8, 2 Timothy 2:15, James 1:22]
We believe that God is a covenantal God. He seeks people who are committed to Him and His purpose, and with one another. We believe an appropriate response to God’s covenant involves loving, honouring and worshipping Him above all else. This flows from our belief that God is the Supreme Creator and has planned all things in His good will. God is love and He desires to form an eternal family among whom He will dwell. We seek to develop covenantal relationships among believers through committing to love and build up one another. We are committed to forgive one another, resolve differences and reconcile relationships resulting in a deeper bond in unity. [Genesis 1:1, Daniel 10:21, Ephesians 1:3-10, Hebrews 1:1-4, Revelation 5:1-5, 10:1-7, Exodus 20:3, Psalm 96:9, 1 John 4:13-21, Revelation 21:1-7, Matthew 6:9-13]
We believe the church is a life-enriching community. We are committed to building an authentic and biblical community that unconditionally loves and effectively enfolds people of all cultures and backgrounds. We seek to create an encouraging community that supports each other towards their fullest potential. We seek to create a caring community where help, concern, sharing and fellowship are naturally expressed out of a sincere love and commitment towards one another. We seek to create a place of healing for the wounded and rest for the weary. Our cell church provides small groups that are an ideal environment to foster such a sense of community as our ministries seek to meet different needs. We seek to be relevant to the diverse people groups in our city, serving their needs holistically and effectively touching their lives for Christ. [Galatians 6:2, 10, Acts 2:42-46]
We believe in the importance of a God given, biblical vision that requires nothing less than our obedience to fulfilling the entirety of God’s vision for the church. We are passionate with the vision to fulfil the Great Commission by raising Christ-centred disciples to plant vibrant biblical churches within every area of all nations in the world. The vision also includes impacting our society in every sphere of human endeavour for Christ. We believe that such a vision is inspiring, exciting, challenging and God-honouring. Every member is encouraged to develop a personal God-sized vision. [Proverbs 29:18, Habakkuk 2:2, Matthew 28:19-20, Isaiah 2:2]
We believe the core command of the Great Commission is to make Disciples of Christ. We aim to raise disciples who are passionate for God, people and the Great Commission. We aim to raise disciples who continually grow in Christ-like attitudes, values and Kingdom-focused lifestyle. We aim to nurture disciples who follow the example of Christ in humility, are submissive in attitude and sacrificial in service. We aim to make disciples who choose to submit their lives and desires to God, as shown by our respect and submission to God’s Word, our leaders and one another. Zealous people, who live holy lives, are full of faith, and desire excellence in their lives and ministry. Disciples who will in turn make more disciples. We encourage every member to be this kind of disciple. [Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 8:29, 1 Corinthians 11:1, Hebrews 13:17]
We believe that every Christ follower has leadership potential. We are committed to helping every member discover and realise this potential for God’s glory. To this end, we place a high priority in inspiring, equipping and empowering every member to effectively undertake the work of the ministry as well as grow in leadership. We also seek to develop whole generations of dedicated, sacrificial and godly leaders for world-changing ministry. [Matthew 9:37-38, Ephesians 4:11-13, Hebrews 13:20-21, Matthew 11:12]
We are committed to help every person experience the privilege of a life-changing personal relationship under the Lordship of Jesus. As part of this, we are committed to empowering members to share their faith and impact their communities. We believe that every believer has a part to play in world-missions. We also believe the church is God’s key vehicle to expand His kingdom. Therefore, our world-missions strategy is to plant vibrant biblical churches in every nation of the world that will permeate through their entire nation by multiplying local churches. The intention of every church is to reach their community, nation and every ethnic group of the world. [Isaiah 52:7, Luke 4:18-19, Ephesians 3:10]
We believe that God uses the five-fold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to mature the Church to the fullest extent.An apostolic movement incorporating the five-fold ministry is God’s plan for the end-time Church. We believe that apostolic movements are a critical component of the new structures God is establishing in His Church to contain the new things that God is outpouring. Thus, we seek to function in the fullness of the five-fold ministries and to raise whole generations of five-fold ministers. [Ephesians 2:19-22, 3:2-6, 4:11-13]
Hope Church
Our Beliefs
Our statement of faith and the essentials we believe:
We believe in every word of the Old and New Testaments as originally given, and that God inspired humans to write it without error. The Bible is the Word of God. It is the absolute truth and therefore is the standard of faith as well as the ultimate handbook for every aspect in a believer’s life.
We believe in the one true and eternal God, the Creator of everything. God is one but exists in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Though they are co-equal, coexistent and co-eternal, they play different roles in human history, working together in creation, revelation, redemption and the final judgment.
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was supernaturally conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Whilst on earth, He was both perfectly God and perfectly man at the same time, and was without sin. He was crucified on the cross and physically rose from the dead on the third day to fulfil the will of the Father to provide salvation from sin to those who believe in Him. He ascended physically to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. One day in the future, He will come again to establish His kingdom.
We believe that the Holy Spirit is God who convicts people of sin and leads them to repent of their sin and place their faith in Jesus for salvation. He dwells within believers to enable them to lead holy lives and obey God’s will.We believe that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible remain in the Church today and should be fully exercised to build up the Body of Christ. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, an experience distinct from repentance and faith in Jesus for salvation, enables Christians to testify of Christ in the power of the Spirit. Speaking in tongues is the normal initial sign of being baptised in the Holy Spirit.
In the Christian life, every believer must live in obedience to Christ and be under the covering of the Holy Spirit. Christians should always be filled with the Spirit .
We believe that God created man in His likeness and without sin but they sinned willingly. As a consequence, sin entered the world and all mankind has inherited a sinful nature. Since everyone has fallen short of God’s standard because of sin and is subject to God’s wrath and condemnation, they all need His salvation which is made possible through the death of Jesus Christ; otherwise they will be judged and punished eternally in hell.
We believe God created angelic beings for His service. They are supernatural but not divine. The Bible teaches that Satan, together with the many angels that follow him, are evil, supernatural, angelic beings and that there is a spiritual kingdom on earth under Satan’s authority opposed to God and His plan. Satan’s kingdom is at war with God’s kingdom. The death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross defeated Satan and enables all men and women who put their trust in Jesus to join God’s kingdom. The Church has been commissioned to rescue men and women from Satan’s kingdom to God’s, a task which will conclude when Jesus returns. God will ultimately triumph when Satan’s rule is terminated and his kingdom destroyed.
We believe that we can be saved from God’s wrath when we confess and repent from sin and place our trust in Jesus Christ. Salvation is given by the grace of God only on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice for sin when He died on the cross and cannot be achieved by a person’s own works. At the point of salvation, an individual becomes a new creation in Christ. Through obedience and faith a Christian is gradually transformed to become more like Jesus.
We believe that the church is the community of God’s people and central to God’s plan of salvation. Once we become Christians, we are adopted into God’s family and become part of the Universal Church, made up of Christians of every age. Local churches are made up of believers who regularly meet together in different localities to worship, listen to the Word of God, fellowship, witness, participate in communion, pray and have other activities together. We believe that every Christian should be committed to a local church.
We believe that the dead will be raised and everyone will have to give account before God. All those who have put their faith in God will receive their reward and live eternally with God in heaven. On the Day of Judgment the remainder will be judged and receive eternal punishment in hell.
We believe that all Christians should be water baptized in obedience to Jesus’ command and as a public testimony of their commitment to follow Him. Water baptism is the immersion of a person completely in water as a symbol of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Communion is for Christians to remember Jesus by partaking of bread and wine as symbols of the flesh and blood of Jesus and the covenant God has made to bring salvation through faith in Christ. It is practiced in obedience to the command of Jesus and can be celebrated as often as believers gather together until Jesus returns.
We believe that Christians must worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Worship is acknowledging the worthiness of God and opening our hearts to relate to Him. Worshiping according to Biblical patterns allows us to use outward expression to come close to God. Some of these expressions of worship include worshiping with other Christians, using musical instruments, singing and exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We believe it is normally God’s will for all mankind to be whole and healthy both physically and spiritually. The Church is vested with the authority of Jesus Christ to bring a ministry of healing in every possible way that is both through the power of God and through medical knowledge and expertise as part of the manifestation of the love of God for all mankind which God desires to bring through His church.