Vision - Where we are going
To see 10% of the community in church, 100% of the community owning church, by 2025.
Hear more about this vision in this video.
Values - What's important to us
CENTERED IN CHRIST
Christ is the centre because He is the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13), the Lord of all (Col. 1:15-21), the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14). This means we intentionally seek to express this in every aspect of life, ministry, outreach and fellowship.
TAKING GOD’S WORD SERIOUSLY
God’s Word is Christ’s Word! To be what God wants us to be in Christ, we need to take His Word seriously - at St Stephens this means expository preaching, faithful teaching and intentional living of God’s Word.
COMMITTED TO PRAYER
Prayer is central to a life of humility and obedience to Christ as Lord. As God’s people we want to be a praying people: praising God, giving thanks, seeking God, waiting on Him. So we pray.
GROWING IN UNITY
Jesus died for the church, He died to make us one (John 17:20-23). By His Holy Spirit at work we want to be active in maintaining this unity (Eph. 4:3) - this means being deliberate about seeking reconciliation, (a focus on loving and caring as a family), and God-honouring as we speak the truth in love.
IMPACTING OUR COMMUNITIES (locally, where we live, abroad)
Jesus asks us to be ‘salt and light’ (Matt. 5:13-16) - communicating the gospel through our words and actions. We want to be intentional about looking outwards to our communities (local and where we live) and impact them with the love of God that has impacted us.
Mission Minded - Being church
Being Mission Minded revolves around our mission statement - To know God and make Him known. In a way, we could think of it as a strategic plan that puts legs on this vision, and helps us understand how we make the vision become a reality.
Each heading is a part of the process of being a disciple of Christ. Our desire is to see people moving along these steps. Our aim is to see our church ministries facilitate and provide for this movement and growth.
That is why we have ministries like The Vege Stall, to ‘raise awareness’; the Drop in Cafe to ‘meet new people’; Chill to ‘get to know people’ and ‘share the gospel’.
It also means we are strategic in how our Life Groups, church services and other events are being Mission Minded.
A more specific part of being Mission Minded is made possible through our discipleship pathway. This is about being more strategic in nurturing faith and training for God’s work. Our DNA:St Stephens course is the first step of this discipleship pathway, followed by LIFE:St Stephens. and EQUIP:St Stephens. Click here for details of our Discipleship Pathway. The aim being to equip people to be ‘ambassadors of Jesus’ wherever God has placed us.
Our aim is to be a Mission Minded church - growing in our knowledge of God and our effectiveness in making Him known.
Our wider church family
St Stephens is part of the Nelson Anglican Diocese - one church among many that make up our larger church family. We therefore also sit within the mission and values of the Diocese of Nelson.
For information on the Standards you can expect of those working in and around St Stephens, please feel free to click here to be taken to the Standards page of the Nelson Anglican Diocese.