Vision Statement
FirstLight’s vision is to be

“A new kind of church transforming lives and reforming Christianity.”

We are not a culture club or a social action group. We do not meet for the sake of meeting or just “do good things together.”

Our vision is not to inform or entertain … television, movies, and the internet can take care of that need.

Our vision is to transform lives.

• To transform a person from living their life according to their desires and the culture’s commands to being a person who lives their life in the way of Jesus.

Living a life in the way of Jesus looks like:
- Embodying wisdom
- Loving our enemies and our neighbors
- Extending grace even when it is not self-serving
- Worshipping God through words and service
- Being agents of justice and social change
- Valuing those who the world degrades
- Belonging to a community of faith
- Pursuing Truth with dialogue, study, and critical thinking
- Longing for Jesus
- Disciplining oneself towards prayer and the study of Scriptures
- Inviting others to “Come and See”

Our vision is to reform Christianity

• In the early 16th century, Martin Luther prophetically declared that the Church of his day needed to be reformed. It had become distant from the needs of the people and was either unable or unwilling to speak in the language of the masses. There was this incredible treasure of the Gospel lying in their hands and they lacked the ability or the desire to communicate the message. In many ways, this is all happening again.

To reform Christianity is a daunting task, but is a noble one. The Church has largely become disconnected with the needs of the day. It has largely fallen short in communicating the incredible treasure of the Bible in a language people can understand. It is time for a re-imagining of the Christian faith.

FirstLight’s vision goes beyond the Gardner area. It is our vision and our challenge to have Christianity as a whole impacted by what God is doing through this “new kind of church” in Gardner.

To see more about what we mean by “a new kind of church” check out the link creatively entitled “What is a new kind of church?”

You see, if we have a new

world, we will need a new

church. We don’t need a

religion per se, but a new

framework for our theology.

Not a new Spirit, but a new

spirituality. Not a new Christ,

but a new Christian. Not a

new denomination, but a

new kind of church in every

denomination.