What are some of DisciplesNet’s core beliefs?

We believe that the church is made of people of faith working to follow and serve Christ, called to work together, to stay connected, in this great network called church. Sometimes you will hear us say that we are about, “Mending, tending, and extending the nets in the name of Jesus Christ.”  To us, the church is a giant safety net to the world, and each of us is charged with looking out for our unique place where we hold and ‘tend’ the net.

Several characteristics you should be able to see in the work we release:
1. We are intentionally work to include people in our messages and prayers who are not physically able to leave home.
2. We use people-first language, seeing the person–the child of God–before all else.
3. We use the gifts of a richly diverse group of individuals in ministry, believing that all people are called to serve as God calls them.
4. We come together with a common belief in Jesus Christ, and dedication to being his disciples–thus we see ourselves connected in Christ.  Our opinions, on the other hand, are as diverse as the people of God.  We work to include people of all backgrounds, preferring to deal in seeing issues in multiplicities, not polarities.

CORE FOUR VISION:
Because our family is global and words can have different meanings around the world, we have chosen to use these 4 guiding images for how we see ourselves, each other, our work together, and our place before God.  We call this our “Core Four vision”
We work to see–

1. Ourselves each as a DISCIPLE OF CHRIST:  We work to see each of ourselves individually as a disciple of Christ. This is a life-long way of learning at the Master’s feet, listening, praying, studying, serving, growing, thinking.  Prayer, Bible study, and learning through service are big parts of this.
2. Every person as a CHILD OF GOD:  We work to see every person as a beloved child of God first and rather than through any other human-made lens, label or test. We try to use “people-first” language, meaning we would try not to say, “disabled man” or “old lady” when we could just say “man” or “lady.”   If the adjective mattered, we would use it carefully, such as “the man has a disability….”
3. Our work together as THE NET:  We see our job together is to be part of a living network serving as God’s arms, feet, mind, and heart around the world. This network is the body of Christ, the church, and we believe in order for this network to do its job, it needs to be connected, active and working well together.
   Connected, active, and working together means we seem to always be thinking about the unity of this net.  You may hear us refer to our Key 3 duties of network: mending, tending, and extending the nets in the name of Jesus Christ.
4. Our place together before God as, THE TABLE PROMISE.