The Stable Church

loving God, serving others, transforming our world

Mission Statement

'Loving God, Serving Others, Transforming Our World'

This statement encapsulates our mission and purpose as a church.
This is what we believe God has called us to do and so
we want to make these our aims and priorities.

Loving God
These aims are in a deliberate order and our duty to love God comes a clear first.  As Jesus expressed it, the most important commandment is to:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  (Mark 12:30)
Our love for God is expressed in various ways.  It is not merely an emotional feeling, though there would be something missing if our emotions were not involved.  It is also a choice to put God first and make sacrifices to follow Him and obey Him.  Jesus said: “For God so loved the world that he gave…” (John 3:16), making clear that sacrificial giving is a natural response of love.  Jesus also said “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15): obedience, including holiness, also demonstrates our love for God.

So we seek to love God individually with our whole lives and corporately by putting God first in everything: this is worship.  At a corporate level, our love for God is also expressed in sung worship.  The psalmist says: “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord” (Psalm 95:1).  We prioritise sung worship in our meetings and aim to express our love for God through songs and in prayer.
There is such a thing as a “sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15), and the Bible encourages us to bring these sacrifices daily and weekly to express our love to God.  We aim to use contemporary songs and style of music in our services so that this aspect of our worship is relevant to our culture and a real expression of who we are.

Serving Others
According to Jesus, the second most important commandment is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself”  (Mark 12:31).
So, after loving God comes loving others.  Again this is a duty and a command and refers to a sacrificial love more than an emotional love, the kind of love that is expressed in serving.  Paul puts it this way: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love” (Romans 12:10).  So we aim to be a family where everyone is included and feels welcome and where we support one another.

Jesus said: 
“A new commandment I give you: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  (John 13:34-35)

So love for each other must be part of our DNA.  This includes serving one another using the gifts that God has given us.  Paul says: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7).  He expected every believer to be able to minister to others in some way.  So we aim to encourage one another in ministry and the use of our gifts and provide opportunities for all members of the church to use their gifts in different contexts.
Transforming Our World
The Great Commission was given by Jesus as some of his last words on earth: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”  (Matthew 28:18-19).

After our duty to love God and love each other, comes our duty to love the world that Jesus died to save.  “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).   We seek to impact the world by preaching the Gospel and demonstrating God’s love to others.

An encounter with God is a transformational experience (Romans 12:2) which we have experienced and want to share with as many others as possible.  For this reason we put on events and from time to time run Alpha courses and seek to encourage one another to live lives that express Jesus to others.

Jeremiah wrote to a people in exile: “Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7).  We are a local church based in Barnet and so our priority in transforming the world is to see Barnet and the people of Barnet transformed.

We also have connections with various ministries both nationally and internationally and have sent people as missionaries to different continents.  As Jesus said: “And this gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  (Matthew 24:14)