Word-Centered Church

In Psalm 119:97, the psalmist wrote, “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” Here at VBC, we believe that the single most important aspect of any church is its orientation to the Word of God. Through God’s revealed Word we come to know Him and are then rightly instructed as to how we can follow Him. Therefore, because we love God, we ought to love His Word.

The Scriptures tell us that Christ is the Head of the church (Eph 1:22). He is the supreme Sovereign over His people and His rule is mediated through the Bible. Therefore, if we desire to be a “Christ-centered” and Christ-governed church, then we must live in submission to the entire Holy Spirit-inspired Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). This realization inevitably affects how and what we preach. In our corporate worship gathering, the sermon is the central time in which we hear from God through His Word.

Expositional preaching is a particular kind of preaching that makes the main point of a given passage the main point of the sermon. The preacher’s responsibility is to study to determine the God-intended meaning of any given passage (2 Tim 2:15) and then herald or preach that meaning to the congregation in the form of a sermon (2 Tim 4:2). In an expositional sermon, the preacher does his best to clearly explain what God has said in a particular passage and then exhorts the congregation to live in light of what God has said.

Furthermore, in our expositional sermons, we are also committed to sequentially working through books of the Bible intentionally covering every portion of the book. This way, we as a congregation, can learn and grow from the whole counsel of God’s Word (Acts 20:27) in the God-inspired order of the book.

According to Ephesians 4:12, it is the work of the pastors and elders to equip the congregation to do the work of the ministry. The gospel, which is the good news about Jesus Christ, is foundational for all ministry inside and outside the church. The gospel is what the lost must hear and understand in order to find forgiveness from God (Rom 1:16). Furthermore, those who have given their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ are matured in the faith by understanding the truths that flow out of the gospel. Therefore, we believe it is pivotal for our people to be fluent in the gospel so that they can know, love, and proclaim it. It is our goal that our people be equipped with the truths of the gospel both to reach the lost and also to minister to the saints.

Despite the tremendous amount of importance that contemporary Christian culture places on musical worship in the church service, there are only two passages in the NT that address the corporate singing of the gathered church – Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:18-19. In both of these passages, the emphasis is on teaching, admonishing, and speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. In corporate worship, we are to let our voices encourage one another by singing the truth of God’s Word. Thus, we desire to prioritize biblical truth in our song selection alongside musical accompaniment that supports and encourages congregational singing.

According to the New Testament, churches are to be led by a plurality of qualified elder-pastors (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). One of the responsibilities that Christ has entrusted to the elders of a local church is to “shepherd the flock of God among them” (1 Pet 5:1-3). In fact, the author of the book of Hebrews reveals that the elders of the church will one day give an account before God for their faithfulness concerning their care for the souls entrusted to them (Hebrews 13:17). Therefore, our elders strive to faithfully provide spiritual oversight and shepherding to each one of our members.

We believe that prayer should be a priority in both our individual lives and also in our corporate worship. In prayer, we commune with our heavenly Father. Therefore, we love to go before the throne of God together as a gathered church on the Lord’s Day – both in our worship service and our regular prayer meeting. If you’re joining us for the first time, you may be surprised by the amount of time we give to prayer in our service (usually around 10 minutes total), but in time we trust that you’ll grow to be encouraged and edified by our corporate times in prayer.

While recognizing that many Christians have misconceptions about church membership, we believe that a practice of meaningful church membership as derived from the New Testament is not an optional add-on that a church may or may not choose to utilize but instead a Christ-instituted biblical requirement for a healthy church. In other words, it is our conviction that the doctrine and practice of church membership flow right out of the New Testament. Therefore, many of the ways we lead and organize our church revolve around having a meaningful understanding and practice of church membership.

In John 13:34, Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” In the following verse He added, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (v.35). As a church family, we believe that our love one another should be a trademark for who we are. In the Bible, love is an act of selflessly giving up of oneself to others. Furthermore, as in the covenant of marriage, we believe that commitment to one another enhances our love for another. Therefore, through our church membership process and church covenant, we commit to loving others in our church family by selflessly serving and being invested in their spiritual well-being.

From the study of the New Testament, it is our conviction that Great Commission advances primarily through gospel-preaching churches establishing other gospel-preaching churches. While today many good causes fall under the banner of “missions”, we desire to be laser-focused in our missions strategy by focusing exclusively on frontline evangelists, church planting, and theological education.