The Prin­ci­ples Guid­ing Our Local Church

“You are the salt of the earth….”
“Have salt in your­selves, and have peace with one another.”

— Jesus Christ, as recorded in Matthew 5:13 and Mark 9:50 KJV.

From its begin­nings in the 1980s and through sev­eral early loca­tion and name changes, Har­mony Seventh-day Adven­tist Church has endeav­oured to pro­vide an envi­ron­ment that presents the uncom­pro­mis­ing Gospel of Jesus Christ in a man­ner both acces­si­ble and rel­e­vant to con­tem­po­rary lives. As we estab­lish con­nec­tions and build rela­tion­ships, we extend an invi­ta­tion to par­tic­i­pate in the chal­lenges of our com­mon vision and shared values.

Mis­sion Statement

We aim to cre­ate a Christ-centred fel­low­ship where peo­ple become fully com­mit­ted dis­ci­ples of Jesus.

State­ment of Purpose

We believe that the Church exists for the pur­pose of Wor­ship, Dis­ci­ple­ship, Evan­ge­lism, Ser­vice, and Fel­low­ship.

Wor­ship

The Church Exist­ing for Christ

“Being found in appear­ance as a man, He hum­bled Him­self by becom­ing obe­di­ent to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this rea­son also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, … and that every tongue will con­fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

— Philip­pi­ans 2:8 – 11 NASB

The pur­pose of the church begins with the recog­ni­tion that we do not belong to our­selves, hav­ing been pur­chased by the death of Jesus Christ, and that He alone is Lord. Enthroned with all author­ity. He is the head of the Church, the One to whom entire alle­giance is due. We thus should seek in all things to fol­low His will as revealed in the Scrip­tures, and bring glory to His name.
(Philip­pi­ans 2:8 – 11; Eph­esians 1:22 – 23; 1 Corinthi­ans 6:19; Colos­sians 1:18; 1 Peter 1:18 – 19; John 19 – 21; Mark 14 – 16; Matthew 27 – 28)

Dis­ci­ple­ship

The Church Exist­ing for Itself

“And He gave some as apos­tles, and some as prophets, and some as evan­ge­lists, and some as pas­tors and teach­ers, for the equip­ping of the saints for the work of ser­vice, to the build­ing up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowl­edge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the mea­sure of the stature which belongs to the full­ness of Christ.”

— Eph­esians 4:11 – 13 NASB

One of the pri­mary goals of the Church must be the life trans­for­ma­tion of each of its mem­bers. This requires a strong pro­gram of Bible teach­ing and of train­ing in dis­ci­ple­ship and per­sonal evan­ge­lism. Believ­ers are to be com­mit­ted to one another. The body of Christ is thus com­posed of inter­de­pen­dent mem­bers, each hav­ing received from the Holy Spirit gifts which are to be exer­cised for the up build­ing of the whole body and for the bear­ing of each oth­ers spir­i­tual and tem­po­ral bur­dens. We thus desire to encour­age in one another the devel­op­ment and use of each other’s abil­i­ties, know­ing that the “whole body, as a har­mo­nious struc­ture knit together by that which every joint sup­plies, grows by the proper func­tion­ing of indi­vid­ual parts to its full matu­rity in love.”
(Eph­esians 4:11 – 13; 2 Tim­o­thy 4:2 – 4; Titus 2:15; Gala­tians 6:1 – 2; Deuteron­omy 6:1 – 2; Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthi­ans 12 – 14; Romans 12:4 – 8; Acts 4:34 – 35; Hebrew 10:24 – 25; Titus 3:14; Joshua 1:8; Eph­esians 4:16)

Evan­ge­lism

The Church Exist­ing for Proclamation

“Go ye there­fore, and make dis­ci­ples of all the nations, bap­tiz­ing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teach­ing them to observe all things what­so­ever I com­manded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

— Matthew 28:19 – 20 ASV

We accept this com­mis­sion as a pri­or­ity of the Church col­lec­tively and of each believer indi­vid­u­ally, and it is our desire to share as widely as pos­si­ble the news of God’s for­give­ness m Christ. God equips and calls believ­ers into a vari­ety of voca­tions and min­istries, and within that con­text each per­son is to be a wit­ness by word and deed to the Lord Jesus Christ. God offers His love to all with­out dis­tinc­tion and is con­cerned that believ­ers achieve their full poten­tial in Christ. The procla­ma­tion of the Gospel should be accom­pa­nied by gen­uine love and con­cern for all, and for the whole per­son.
(Matthew 28:19 – 20; Acts 1:8; Colos­sians 4:3 – 6; Mark 16:15; Matthew 5:13 – 16; Romans 10:14 – 17; Matthew 22:37 – 39; Eph­esians 3:16 – 19; Eph­esians 4:13)

Ser­vice

The Church Exist­ing for Action

“Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the king­dom pre­pared for you from the foun­da­tion of the world; for I was hun­gry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you wel­comed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you vis­ited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’”

— Matthew 25:34 – 36 RSV

In addi­tion to the procla­ma­tion of the Gospel, the church has been com­mis­sioned by Christ to extend in the world His own min­istry of com­pas­sion and of a prophetic protest against evil. The church can never set­tle for its own com­fort in a world cracked by prob­lems such as moral decay, polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and oppres­sion, vio­lence and crime, unjust resource use and wealth dis­tri­b­u­tion, and other social scourges that require solu­tions and inter­ven­tions informed by Scrip­tural imper­a­tives. With­out manip­u­lat­ing polit­i­cal power to impose Chris­t­ian stan­dards on a sec­u­lar and plu­ral­is­tic soci­ety, the church is com­manded to act as a con­science to the world by demon­strat­ing the love and right­eous­ness of God in both word and sac­ri­fi­cial deed.
(Luke 3:10 – 14; Luke 4:16 – 21; Acts 4:34 – 35; 2 Corinthi­ans 10:4; Gala­tians 6:10; James 2:14 – 26; James 5:1 – 5; 1 John 3:16)

Fel­low­ship

The Church Exist­ing for One Another

“And all those who had believed were together and had all things in com­mon…. Day by day con­tin­u­ing with one mind in the tem­ple, and break­ing bread from house to house, they were tak­ing their meals together with glad­ness and sin­cer­ity of heart, prais­ing God and hav­ing favor with all the people. …”

— Acts 2:44 – 47 NASB

The New Tes­ta­ment presents a pic­ture of defin­able groups of peo­ple who, once com­mit­ted to the Lord, iden­ti­fied them­selves with and com­mit­ted them­selves to a par­tic­u­lar local body. Mem­ber­ship in the body of Christ requires sub­mis­sion to Christ — a desire to bring each phase of ones life under His Lord­ship. It there­fore involves obe­di­ence to the Scrip­tural prin­ci­ples of com­mit­ment and account­abil­ity to the body of Christ. Reg­u­lar fel­low­ship with other believ­ers is vital to a healthy Chris­t­ian walk. There­fore believ­ers should be will­ing to adjust their sched­ules to give pri­or­ity to meet­ing with the body when it cor­po­rately assem­bles. Fur­ther­more, because Christ expended Him­self on our behalf, we should be will­ing to give of our tune to build His king­dom and pur­sue those things of eter­nal sig­nif­i­cance. As mem­bers of the body, we should con­tin­u­ally seek to develop a spirit of mutual love, con­cern, encour­age­ment, and the bear­ing of one another’s bur­dens. We are to be con­cerned with each other’s spir­i­tual well being, stim­u­lat­ing each other to a deeper walk and com­mit­ment to Christ.
(Philip­pi­ans 2:1 – 3; 1 Corinthi­ans 1:9; Psalm 133; Romans 12:10; Gala­tians 6:2; Acts 2:42; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:24; Romans 16:1; 1 Corinthi­ans 1:2; 2 Corinthi­ans 8:1; Philip­pi­ans 1:1; Acts 11:26)