Defining our values

Defining Values

Attempting to identify our core values can help us to clarify our

vision. There are at least two ways that I tend to think about values. One is personal and subjective; the other is absolute (or ought to be). On the personal side, our values can be useful constructs that help guide our daily decisions. On the absolute side, our ultimate values (affections) reveal the deepest desires of our hearts.

Personal subjective values
We often use the word "value" in describing what things cost compared to their benefits to us. We weigh the cost of a loaf of bread or a new car to the benefit it offers us and determine its relative value. The value we assign to each thing depends on how we weigh the importance of its attributes. Our estimation of its attributes is colored greatly by personal preferences. When assigning value to a car, some people esteem dependability and gas mileage, others prefer power and style. It's our personal preferences that ultimately determine the value we place on such an object.

We also use the word "value" to describe our personal customs and morals. "Family values" or "corporate values" are examples of this use of the term. This notion of value also allows for personal preference and subjective estimation. For example, one family may value quiet and order, while another may value activity and experiences. Educational choices, use of time, which television shows we watch all reflect the values we hold. These values are very different from one family to another and there is a great deal of room for difference. There is a broad spectrum of acceptable and virtuous family values. And of course, there may be some that are not so virtuous. But each family is free to consider and establish the values that will govern their family life.

In these examples the value of a thing is both personal and subjective. There are few hard and fast rules to determine whether we send our kids to school or home school, whether watch TV or avoid it all together.

Absolute values
While our subjective values may be assigned based on personal preferences, our absolute values are attached with eternal significance. These absolute values are so important we would be in danger of hell if we have the wrong ones! Consider how God describes the essence of evil as having misplaced values. "'Be appalled, O Heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate,' declares the Lord. 'For my people have committed two evils: They have forsaken me the fountain of living water, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water'" Jeremiah 2:12-13. To value anything more than we value God is the summation of all evils. Again God speaks through Isaiah in chapter 55, "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters: and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money on what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear to me. Listen, that you might live...." In this sense, if we ultimate value anything other than God, we die! We don't live. Our eternal life hangs in the balance of what we ultimately value.

Our ultimate and absolute value in God alone should dramatically impact how we live how we determine our subjective values. In the parable of the merchant, Jesus shows the appropriate response we should have when we discover that which is ultimately valuable. We should go and sell all that we have to obtain it (Matt. 13:45-46). With this in mind we should consider our absolute value as primary, and all our personal or subjective values as secondary.

I think that much of what the Christian life is about is saturating all our secondary, subjective values with our primary, absolute value in God. This is otherwise known as living by faith. Faith, then, is valuing God who is unseen, over and above all the things that we can see.

Establishing the values for our church
There is, however, a tendency, when establishing values for our church, to use the familiar mechanisms by which we determine our personal values rather than our absolute values. We may feel free to establish our church's values based on our subjective preferences, since they reflect our corporate choices. In the same way that a family decides which rules to follow for the use of television, the church's organizational structure and its programs are usually determined by its subjective values. While at a certain level this is quite valid and our corporate values will have personal preferences attached, there is another sense in which our church values may not be so subjective.

Our church's values ought to reflect a supreme value for God himself. For God is appalled at anything less than this. Conversely, valuing God above everything else results in eternally delighting in the abundance God's glorious riches.

Our initial brainstorm list of our values
As I began to assemble this list from our discussions during our last elders meeting, I recognized that the values we named primarily revolve around the kingdom of God (the church) rather than the king himself. Additionally, we soberly noticed that our list left out some key values we ought to have, the chief among them being prayer. These characteristics may reveal deficiencies in our corporate values. We should not quickly pass over any indictment against us in our lack of valuing prayer. It may characterize us as ones that are so in love with a wine skin, that we don't even notice when the skin is empty. If this is true, we need to deeply repent and ask God to fill us again so that we never love the manifestation of his glory (in his kingdom) more than its King.

It is scary that we may have misplaced our affections on the kingdom of God more than on the King. If so we need to let God shine as much light as he needs to fix this critical flaw. This is not a simple correction to make, because at some level we are called to value the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33), and God is glorified by manifesting his wisdom, through the church (Eph. 3:10). These two verses have powerfully influenced my life and I continue to value them deeply. It is also quite appropriate to value God's kingdom, living it out in the context of the church. Our list positively reflects how we value the practical working out of God's kingdom in and through our relationships within the church. These aspects of kingdom life are intricately woven into what it means to live for God, honoring him in the ways he himself ordained. Many of our stated values place proper emphasis on the word of God, dependence on the Holy Spirit in discipleship, and exercising our gifts. These values do show an appropriate regard for God. They are good and we have been blessed by having them instilled in us. Nevertheless, to value an emanation of God's glory more than the source of God himself is wrong.

Some will stand before God, who apparently valued certain manifestations of God's glory such as prophecy, miracles, and the ability to cast out demons, and hear to their eternal horror "away from me, I never knew you." I assume these poor souls had some sense that they were valuing God in exercising these outward manifestations. But it seems they failed in fulfilling God's will because they valued the manifestation more than God himself. For what is "doing the will of the Father?" It is to "Love the Lord your God (value and treasure him supremely) with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your strength." Secondarily, it is to love your neighbor as yourself. One is primary and the other is secondary and corollary to the first. We fall hard if we switch God's secondary will (loving others, living out the kingdom) with His primary will (loving Him supremely).

In evaluating our values I feel we must do two things. First we must add to our list (and our hearts!) a primary value for God himself. Secondly, we should recast all of the other values (i.e., values for the kingdom) in the light of our supreme value of God. Doing so will retain our good values for living in the kingdom, while helping us to always value the King supremely.

Our core value:

We have but one supreme value, which is for the glory of Lord our God. We delight in the glory of the one God manifest to us in the three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We stand in awe of him. All that we do, especially in secondarily valuing the manifestation of his glory (the church, Eph 3:10) we do for the glory of God (I Cor. 10:31). We exult in the knowledge of God, the worship of God, and our dependence on God in prayer. All other values stem from our supreme value in God alone.

• Multiple house churches united to make up one city church (fellowship)
• Fellowship elders mutually oversee each other and the whole (city) church
• Specific elders primarily oversee (and are responsible for) specific house churches

• Small, family sized groups
• Small group intimacy and accountability
• Mutual edification
• Critical mass

• Every member ministry
• Opportunities for all members to practice their gifts
• Reproduction of believers, leaders, churches
• Weekly men's and women's meetings
• Teaching
• Prayer

• Covenantal basis for church membership
• Focus on relationship and commitment over theology in recognizing members

• Plurality of elders
• Elders raised up from within
• Primary emphasis on bi-vocational lay leaders
• Bias against "professional" ministry (wisdom and character over knowledge)
• Corporate decision-making

• Men disciple men, women disciple women
• Sufficiency of scripture in counseling
• Recognition of God's appointment and use of human authorities
• Active church discipline
• Attention to families, marriages, and children

• High view of scripture (inerrancy/infallibility)
• Obedience to scripture

• Focus on missions
• Low value for tangible assets (buildings)