One of the first things people tend to notice about Fallbrook is how many churches there are. And yes, the residents of the Friendly Village are a thoroughly reached people group. Or they would seem to be, according to the ratio of churches per capita.
But are they really? Is the gospel of Jesus reaching the vast nursery greenhouses south of town? Is it changing how parents, coaches and umpires interact at the sports park? Is it making young Marines from the other side of the country feel welcomed? Is it affecting the local economy? The local schools? The suicide rate?
There are many competing visions of church, you see. We desire not only to be a place where people have their spiritual needs met, but where they are equipped and supplied for the mission to carry the gospel into the community of Fallbrook with joyful determination. Because, in the end, having our spiritual needs met and changing the world are synonymous in the kingdom of God.
At Emmanuel, we are laying a new foundation for the years to come. We need people who are excited about being part of a gospel-centered community, who are open to new and ancient ways of being a church, and who are committed to the process of discipleship—both pursuing Jesus personally and getting in the game to raise others up in the gospel.
These are some things that matter a lot to us—from taking our time with each other to learning how to pray well in a hyper-modern world.
We desire to be a praying church, a community with a taste for the deep communion and unlimited possibilities available to God’s people when they pray. We will pray first and foremost for the spiritual life of our church, seeking revival in our midst; and we will learn together new ways of praying that vastly exceed, in power and satisfaction, the intercessory prayers for physical needs that is typically the extent of corporate prayer in most churches.
The goal: Disciples who pray with real spiritual power.
We desire to be intensely focused on Scripture in everything we do, cultivating the daily appetite for God’s Word that is the spiritual nourishment and intellectual foundation of the Christian life. We take the bible seriously, as the Word of God, and as the story of redemption in which we are all living. We read individually, prayerfully, and always open to a grand experience of the gospel, and we meet regularly to discuss what God is revealing to us in the text. We consider that our reading and discussion, which begin as duty, can in God’s power become a delight that we would not trade for anything.
The goal: Disciples who read, discuss, and listen to the text intently and expectantly.
As a community of God's people, we practice saying aloud, to each other, the momentous and quietly meaningful things God has done and is doing in our lives. We will do this as often as we get the opportunity, but the church seeks to provide a forum where important questions are discussed and people are given the opportunity to testify to the fruit of the gospel in their lives.
The goal: Disciples who believe their story is part of the big story God is telling.
We take Christ’s commission—“Go therefore and make disciples”—to be our mission, and therefore we are committed to preaching the gospel, practicing the gospel, reading our bibles to encounter the gospel, and discussing the gospel in ways that provide our members with a thorough working vocabulary of the gospel. Enough gospel? Not even remotely. We will be guided in our decisions by the twin values of transformation and multiplication, and learn to recognize opportunities to apply the gospel in ordinary, everyday life.
The goal: Disciples who are making disciples.
We desire for our worship to be largely table-focused, so that the practice of the Lord’s Supper is central to the weekly gathering. This is to fortify the gospel; to reinforce the practical simplicity of Christian fellowship; to resist the calcification of the church into a theological or social club; to feed the spiritual body of Christ that is our gathering; and to nurture the sense that the essential elements of a healthy church are things that do not require a specialist at the front of the room.
The goal: Disciples who embody their worship and know how to feast on Christ.
This adjective describes our worship and our fellowship. It does not mean unpunctual, when time is of the essence, but defines an ethos in our posture toward God and one another: We like being together, and recognize the necessity—in an increasingly chaotic and physically disconnected world—of taking our time over the things that really matter. One of the distinct things about the early church was this quality—they did not even consider the time that belonged to them to be their own.
The goal: Disciples who honor worship and fellowship with a generosity of time.
At Emmanuel, we believe that the people make the music and that music is only one proper expression of what the bible calls “worship.” Worship is something that our hearts do naturally all of the time, fixing either on Christ or on something else—an idol—for our satisfaction and security. So the intentional practice of Christian worship in prayer and song every Sunday is more than a time to hear nice-sounding music; it is central to the rhythm of the Christian life. We desire our worship to be white-hot and congregational—that is, not dependent on a few virtuoso musicians, but on the combined voices of God’s people.
The goal: Disciples who worship Jesus passionately, in Spirit and truth.