Mission and Vision

The Mission of Greenville Oaks Church of Christ is to:

Seek all who need Jesus and together become His fully devoted followers.

 

Our vision celebrates and builds on what God has already done through Greenville Oaks. It challenges us to leave the relative comfort of “doing church” fairly well, in conventional ways, to embrace God’s much higher calling. It challenges us to earnestly continue our journey toward becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus. Our vision is all about Going Beyond our present level of spiritual maturity. We envision:

  1. Going beyond friendly to offering unexpected acceptance and life-changing community.
  2. Going beyond learning about God to really knowing God and experiencing genuinely transformed lives.
  3. Going beyond serving our church family to eagerly serving others out of gratitude for the grace God has clearly shown us.
  4. Going beyond just understanding God’s plan of salvation to naturally sharing our stories of how God is transforming our lives.
  5. Going beyond worship service attendance to responding to God’s saving grace in our everyday lives with authentically joyful and thankful worship celebrations.

As our friends, family, co-workers, classmates - our community - see us Going Beyond the expected, God will move us beyond ourselves and use Greenville Oaks to serve His children in ways we’ve never imagined and bring thousands to a saving faith in Jesus.

 

Our vision leads us to pursue our mission with greater action and commitment that is supported by strategic initiatives:

Expanded Vision

Our vision is clear. It’s a challenging and exciting picture of the future of Greenville Oaks as we believe it can and must be. Our vision is not a fleeting dream or open-ended wish. It’s a very big vision of how we believe God wants to mature and use Greenville Oaks to seek all who need Jesus and together become his fully devoted followers. It’s not about simply counting success by larger worship attendance, but by reaching new people who don’t already know Jesus.

Like first century Christianity, our vision is counter cultural. It goes against our cultural instinct to never show our personal weaknesses. It is a vision of God repairing broken lives to build Greenville Oaks into a humble yet powerful group of Christ followers who are free to let down our guard to receive and give Jesus’ love. Our vision breaks the plastic masks we often use to preserve the illusion that we have it all together. It reveals authentically real and honest faces of people who are not perfect but are being transformed by the grace of God and are simply helping each other do life better. By God’s amazing grace we will become real people who are routinely experiencing real joy and real hope.

We see the Holy Spirit empowering Greenville Oaks to be a very healthy church that brings thousands of people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The following expands our vision of what will be with examples of what we see in our future. 

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Vision Presentation, May 23, 2010) 

1.     We will be a place of unexpected acceptance and life-changing community.

We see God transforming Greenville Oaks into a vibrant demonstration of life in His Kingdom, an oasis for real and broken people who are experiencing and sharing real joy and real hope. With overwhelming compassion for all human kind, whether we agree on everything or not, we see old and young, rich and poor, and all races being accepted, and connecting, belonging and caring for each other as family.

We see an incredibly safe community (in church assemblies, small groups, Bible classes, ministry teams, support groups), where the freedom to be real about any kind of struggle, heartache, hang-up, fear or failure is met with the experience of God’s forgiveness and our church family’s comfort and love.

-  When we crash and burn we don’t have to hide it, but share it with confident assurance that we will feel a caring arm around our shoulder and see people running to help and support us.

-  When life hits us hard and we are reeling from hurt and loss, when we’re crushed by illness, when our finances crumble, our jobs go away, our friends or family betray and abandon us, we see hearts that hurt with us and hands that help pick up the pieces. 

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Making Good Connections, May 30, 2010)

2.     We will be a people who really find God and experience genuinely transformed lives.

We see Greenville Oaks developing a holy hunger to experience God in an ever deepening relationship that changes how we think, and how we feel and how we live. A people who, through all of life’s ups and downs, are learning to see God at work and are finding the real joy and hope that comes by living and growing in the Kingdom of God.

-  When we get sucked into sin and caught up in immorality or anger, materialism or pride; when marriages crumble and families fall apart, we don’t find condemnation but understanding. We find others who will walk beside us in our struggle, but also expect, through God’s power that we will overcome. And we do!

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Growing Up In Christ, June 6, 2010)

3.     We will recognize God at work in our lives so clearly that we eagerly respond to serve others.

We see all Greenville Oaks members and those who attend regularly actively using their unique talents, gifts, passion and resources to serve local and distant communities along with our local church family. An eagerness to serve is driven from a desire to reflect the love and grace we’ve received. People know they can come to Greenville Oaks to find something to eat when they are hungry, someone to cry with when they are hurting, and someone to be with when they are lonely and listen to them when they are confused by what is happening. And as lives are transformed we joyfully celebrate the victories.

We see Greenville Oaks partnering with other churches, community organizations and charities to help people find healing through God’s grace and power for all kinds of physical, spiritual, relational and emotional needs.

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Service that Makes a Difference, June 13, 2010)

4.      We will share the gospel message by naturally sharing stories of God’s work in our lives.

We see a people who experience God at work in our lives so clearly that we are excited to share the stories with our friends and neighbors and co-workers over coffee, at home around the dinner table, at the park while our kids are playing, and wherever we go. Our God stories open the door to sharing the good news of Jesus with others and helping them understand who He is and how He wants to have a relationship with them as well.

We see an eagerness to bring friends to a worship assembly or a small group meeting because they will experience real-life, relevant good news clearly and naturally shared in an atmosphere of acceptance.

We see a healthy and growing Greenville Oaks that is regularly planting new churches in Collin County and the greater DFW metroplex. And our own are equipped and sent to serve as long-term missionaries in different parts of the world and hundreds are sent on annual short-term mission efforts.

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Something Worth Sharing, June 20, 2010)

5.      We will look forward to assemblies that are authentically joyful and thankful celebrations of our witness of God at work in our everyday lives.

We see hearts that simply overflow with awareness of how God is blessing us through our daily experience of life in His Kingdom. When we come together in times of corporate worship, this awareness pours out in thankful celebration of God’s love and grace that is so enjoyable, exciting and deeply meaningful that children, teens and adults all eagerly look forward to participating.

We see thousands gathering in multiple services and in different settings within Greenville Oaks’ fully developed site and in other planted congregations. These gatherings offer different worship styles that enable people from various parts of our contemporary culture to hear and actively engage in worship experiences that are relevant and encourage them to effectively honor God. Regardless of style the greatness of our God, the joy of our salvation, and the completeness of life in Christ is clearly experienced by all who are present.

We see Greenville Oaks understanding that we worship every moment of our lives – as we serve others in the name of Jesus, reach out with the message of God, and are transformed more and more into the image of His Son.

(Going Beyond Sermon Series - Honoring God, June 27, 2010)

As we let go of cultural and religious distractions and completely focus on our mission, we are confident that God will use this vision and strategies to bless our lives and invite more new brothers and sisters into His Kingdom than we can possibly imagine. 

Visit the Going Beyond Blog for more on our vision.