CityPeace

Our gospel values can be summarized in three statements:

Jesus and His Gospel. The Bible is the story of God entering the world through Jesus Christ to achieve a salvation that man could not achieve for ourselves and through that means to renew everything.[1] is the gospel. Jesus saves man and world from sin, reversing all that is wrong through His death and resurrection on the cross. The cross, then, is not just for individual salvation but the pattern and paradigm for renewing all things in order to reestablish the kingdom of God.

Gospel Renewal. The gospel is not only the way of entering the kingdom but how life in the kingdom is realized today. Individuals are made anew to the degree that Jesus and His gospel become the power and paradigm of dying to self and living in His life. Daily renewal is, then, gained by allowing the gospel to do its work on the heart as well as inform relations with the Other. Consequently, the gospel creates a community, a people, that looks like the surrounding culture but with values of God’s kingdom–greatness through service, loving self-sacrifice, humble courage, richness through giving away.

City Renewing. With man’s rejection of the relationship with God and denial of His authority, creation became undone. As Jesus reestablished God’s authority and kingdom, creation—as exemplified in the people and culture of the city—once unraveled by sin is being rewoven. The counter-culture, kingdom community seeks the peace and prosperity of the city as part and parcel to the gospel story, of renewing everything by grace.

+++ The Bible passage providing an example of the above is Galatians, see especially 6:12-18 [C. Drew].
+++ The definition derived from Tim Keller, along with other parts of this statement.