Renew's Values—Foundations & Values

When we think about the culture of Renew, I think there are two things we need to think about.

First, the culture of our surrounding society.

Second, the culture we desire to build for Renew, as expressed in our values.

Gold Coast Society

So what is the culture of our surrounding society?

This is something I researched way back in my role as Apologist in Residence at Mosaic. I found that the Gold Coast attracted people because of its offer of an ideal life-work balance.

But what is an ideal life-work balance? For Gold Coasters, it means the opportunity to get outdoors and do stuff, especially water sports, but also things like cycling, walking, hiking, and so on.

On the GC, team sports are popular for kids, but overall because the Coast is really about self-indulgence. We have great shopping centres to indulge our desire to buy, buy, buy. We have amazing homes with great views, or large yards, or pools, or great entertaining areas so that we can indulge our passions at home, perhaps with select guests. We have lots of gyms and health places to indulge our obsession with fitness and beauty. We even have numerous, sprawling and luxurious aged complexes to allow us to age in luxury and privacy.

The GC is, at its heart, a hedonistic society. We worship pleasure and we have sought out this beautiful corner of the world in which to indulge in it. A phrase you’re likely to hear on the Gold Coast is “This is as good as it gets!”

This is also why so many of the Gold Coast’s churches are Pentecostal churches aiming to be mega-churches. The focus of Pentecostal Christianity is on experiencing God’s blessings in this present life—a goal that can be very compatible with the Gold Coast’s focus on experiencing blessings in this present life. That sort of church is often slotted into the normal Gold Coast life, adding a little depth and perhaps some relational and spiritual pleasures.

Renew’s Values

Which brings us to Renew. You might have noticed that we are not a Pentecostal church, and we’re definitely not mega.

Rather, our values are built around three core, Biblical commands: to love God with everything we are, to love our neighbour with the same love we lavish on ourselves, and to make disciples for Jesus of all people.

How does this fit into GC culture?

First, I want to emphasize that we should appreciate the beauty and the appeal of the Gold Coast. We all enjoy this gorgeous place we live in, and many of our church activities take advantage of the blessings of the Gold Coast. Nor do we advocate living in a way that separates us from the pleasures available at the Gold Coast. I love our lakeside home, the Groves and Dunns love their acreages, I know we all love the various aspects of our lives that are made pleasurable by the infrastructure and opportunities of the Coast.

But we hold these pleasures lightly—they are not what give our lives meaning. If we lose them, our lives will not be destroyed. I did not come to the Gold Coast chasing pleasure, I came here to work and to serve. I stayed here because I thought it was a great place to raise kids. I live here now because of the opportunity to serve and love. I know that you all have similar stories.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Renew and the incipient prosperity gospel of our Pentecostal sister churches is that we do not flinch away from the recognition that paradise hides pain. Lots of pain. The Gold Coast is a lonely place. Its exaggerated individualism encourages family breakdown. Its obsession with youth and beauty creates crippling anxiety and physical pain in those who pursue this impossible goal. Its obsession with wealth and possessions creates devastating debt, which itself tears apart relationships.

Our answer to this is not “God will protect you from pain and suffering in this life, if you can just be obedient” but rather “God will redeem you through the inevitable pain and suffering of this life.”

Let’s look at what our values really mean, and how Renew can distinctively live out these universal, Christian truths.

Biblical Discipleship

Our first value, Biblical Discipleship is how we, as a church, fulfill the Greatest Commandment:

Mark 12:30 NLT

30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’

Remember that love for God is expressed in many ways, including loving his creation (a big part of GC culture), loving our neighbours, and loving one another.

It’s important to recognise that we are not humanly capable of this total love for God. If we try to love God by loving his creation, that creation becomes our idol; if we try to love God by loving others, they become our idols (or our tyrants); if we try to love God through religious practice, we become pharisees.

None of us can work our way to heaven:

Romans 3:10–12 NLT

10 As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. 11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”

So loving God will all we are is not something we do. Rather, it is something we become through God’s deep involvement in our souls.

John 15:4–11 ESV

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

This idea of abiding is core to who we are. We live, we exist in God, and he in us. Without that mutual indwelling we are just dry branches, lifeless things that will be thrown into the fire. Tragically, this is the fate of all Gold Coasters who reject Jesus. They have no life. When they boast, “It doesn’t get better than this,” they are sadly correct if they continue to reject Jesus, but sadly wrong about the possibilities of true life in Jesus that they are missing out on.

How do we love God, though, how do we abide in him? Jesus makes it clear to his disciples: “keep my commandments.”

How do we know Jesus commandments? By reading his Word!

But we have seen how vast the gulf is between obedience to Christ and the priorities of the surrounding culture. How can we persist with such a different life-style? Only by supporting one-another in our journey:

1 Thessalonians 5:11 NLT

11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

And that, my friends, is what Biblical Discipleship is. Grounding ourselves in God’s word so that we can live in him and he in us, and doing it together, supporting each other in the journey, so that we can all make it to the end of this difficult road.

Which leads to:

Gracious Community

If we are to support one another in our journey of discipleship, and in our endeavour to fulfill Jesus’ command and to bring light to this world, then we need to build a community of love. The type of love in the second greatest commandment:

Mark 12:31 NLT

31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

But living as Jesus’ disciples is hard work, as the preacher of Hebrews tells his listeners:

Hebrews 12:12–14 NLT

12 So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. 13 Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong. 14 Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.

You don’t become a great surfer by only going to the beach every so often. You don’t get a buff body by working out when the fancy strikes you. You don’t get to own your own house without pouring your wealth into it. You don’t grow closer to God without focusing on him and the family he has adopted you into.

So Renew is a community—a group of people bound together by mutual love of God and one another. We don’t get together because we love Mary’s cooking or Nicole’s singing or Mable’s activites or my talks. We get together because we love God and one another, and we want to get each other home to God, and gather others to join us along the way.

Now because we don’t get together because of these worldly or cultural connections, we must be a gracious community. Grace is not tolerance, not as our society understands tolerance, anyway. Modern tolerance means that you put up with someone’s behaviour so that they will put up with yours.

No, grace is forgiving wrongs that have been done to you. Grace requires a recognition of what is right and what is wrong. It is not grace to forgive someone for making a dish that you didn’t find tasty—that is mere personal preference. It is not grace to forgive someone for saying something you found offensive—your emotions are yours to manage. But it is grace to forgive someone for saying something meant to hurt you. It is grace to forgive someone for failing to provide for you.

Grace is not a human activity, it is a supernatural activity. We show grace because we have been shown grace. We must remember that everyone of us is a profoundly broken creature.

As Paul explains:

Colossians 2:13–14 NLT

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.

And so we put on the new self that Jesus has given us, and we live differently:

Colossians 3:12–13 NLT

12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

And you know what? Living like this doesn’t just change us. It changes the world:

John 13:34–35 NLT

34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Which brings us to our final value:

Light to the World

This value is both the natural outcome of our first two values, and also one of the reasons (perhaps the main reason) that we are here on earth rather than in heaven with Jesus. The last two verses of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life tell us of Jesus great commission for his disciples:

Matthew 28:19–20 NLT

19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This commission informs our first value, Biblical Discipleship. It also informs our second value, Gracious Community, since what else are people being baptised into?

We cannot be lights without being disciples. Jesus tells his listeners in the sermon on the mount:

Matthew 5:14–16 NLT

14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

Notice that we are called to shine our lights out. We are not meant to be hidden, but rather the opposite. This is why our values of Biblical Discipleship and Gracious Community must be worked out in a way that everyone can see. Renew must be transparent as a church, allowing people to see our transformed lives, and through them the reality, power, and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We could have chosen other metaphors from Scripture to express this, such as ambassadors:

2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT

20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

or salt:

Matthew 5:13 NLT

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.

or the body of Christ:

1 Corinthians 12:27 NLT

27 All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.

We chose “light” because it most strongly emphasizes the need to be visible, to not be a private club or a timid community. Light is unequivocally a positive thing. God calls us to shine out. We are his beacons, calling all people to salvation by working out our own salvation.

Let’s pray,

Lord help us to know you, to obey you, and to grow in you. Help us to encourage one another, and to be beacons to this lost world. In Jesus’ name, Amen.