We love the Bible and submit to it as God’s authoritative and inerrant word. In other words, we don’t judge it, it judges us.
We believe that its relevance crosses all cultures and all generations, and if handled properly, can speak effectively into every situation, and every difficulty that life throws up – see 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. We believe that God has chosen the ‘foolishness’ of preaching to save those who believe. Because of this we give time and energy to Spirit-empowered preaching. We aim to preach the Gospel full of grace, full of boldness, full of the Holy Spirit, and without apology. This means we are an evangelical church.
Also, we actively encourage and pursue all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Bring ‘em on – as long as we are strong in Bible truth and free to weigh the contributions that people bring, we will only be built up by the gifts and not harmed. This means we are a charismatic church.
Being a charismatic church means that the Holy Spirit is the worship leader when we gather. He leads by prompting different members of the church to contribute with songs, prayers, thanksgivings, prophecies, messages in unlearnt languages with interpretation etc. We do have gifted musicians to help us in our praise, but the eyes of the congregation are encouraged to be towards heaven rather than towards the front. This makes for spontaneous, unpredictable and dynamic times together.
A term sometimes used for churches that are both evangelical and charismatic is Word & Spirit – and that is a good way of describing what we are.
We also believe that the church should not be led by a one-man ministry, but by elders (a team of qualified men) – 1 Timothy 3v1-7. In addition to this, the Lord has given the five-fold ministries that we read about in Ephesians 4:11 (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher) to equip and mature the church. The implication here – as well as what we see in the New Testament is that churches are to be connected to teams of people who genuinely operate in the anointing of these different gifts, some of those people based in the local church, others serving from the wider church scene. This means that we are meaningfully connected to others outside Revelation church, which makes us part of an apostolic family of churches.
As a church, we are sold-out on God’s mission to make His glory known to the ends of the earth. As such, we are convinced that the whole church is to be a missionary – not just a few special individuals. Some people call this kind of church a missional church.
