Our first core value as an organization is that we are gospel-centered.
The word gospel means “good news”, and it is a crucial distinction for anyone seeking to understand what makes Christianity different from every other religious or philosophical system.
Good news is not good advice, good morals, or good steps toward a healthier life. Those things may guide us, but they cannot create life. They tell us what to do, leaving us to accomplish the work and achieve the outcome.
The gospel is vastly different. It is not something we achieve; it is something we receive.
Religion can become a framework that tells us what we must do to get to God. But the uniquely Christian way is to respond to what God has already done to come to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
For our work to be gospel-centered means that we live and operate in this awareness. We faithfully and diligently do the work God has placed before us, holding ourselves accountable for what He has entrusted to us, while trusting Him with the outcomes. This is not permission for passivity; it is freedom from believing that everything depends on us.
We are responsible for our faithfulness,
but we are not responsible for producing what only God can produce.
My hope is that this will be increasingly apparent in our work not because we are striving harder, but because we are serving from what we have already received.
May the good news shape not only what we do, but also how we lead, collaborate and walk alongside others as they serve in this ministry.