As an Equipping church, we intentionally nurture each person’s spiritual gifts and journey of faith. To that end, we encourage each person in our church to go where he or she feels holy and alive. Our governing structure allows people to hear “Yes” when they say, “I have a new idea,” or “I would like to join this team,” or “I want to be part of this ministry,” or “I need quiet time now,” or “Can you help me?” We are all ministers – and in that role, we take hold of our joyous and challenging ventures; we help each other; and we acknowledge our own struggles. In our teamwork, interactions, and worship, we provide the equipment, the tools, the “Yes” to move forward, to expand our hearts. We can embrace this vulnerability because we are safe: “We covenant to love one another, assuming the best of each other.” An Equipping church says, in small ways and in large, “How can I encourage you, equip you, to be your God-given best – and how can I value that glory-filled gift that you are?”
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Our heart-and-spirit based governance works from the bottom up; people are the core of a flexible, equipping structure that listens, changes, and thrives. Bylaws adapt to people rather than people adapting to bylaws. The more we encourage each other and our spiritual gifts, the more our church spiritually grows. Our image for our governance is a tree – with our leadership officers and teams as the roots, taking in the water of life, and allowing it to bubble up into all the branches that are our individual ministries. Those roots stay strong and help those branches reach out because we believe in the health of community. Over this tree shines our God who is our ultimate nourishment, the love to which we stretch.