Our Mission

To Live As God’s Family Under the Cross– Loving, Serving, Praising and Proclaiming

God’s Family:  Through grace we become God’s children, and differences between us dissolve (Gal. 3:26-28).  God makes us family (Gal. 6:10), and our task as a church is to live out that unity (Eph 4:3).  One of the ways we try to do that is through Body Life.  On Sunday evenings during the school year, small groups (6-12 adults) gather in homes for fellowship, study, and prayer.  This allows us to get to know each other more intimately than we can in larger groups.  Our Family Ministry also sponsors activities that help us to grow closer together.

Under the Cross: The cross is at the center of Christianity (1 Cor. 15:3).  It is God’s power to save us (1 Cor. 1:18, Col. 1:20).  We live for Christ by taking up His cross (Lk. 9:23).  As Luther put it, “The cross puts everything to the test.”  No matter what we do to serve God, we can only boast in the cross (1 Cor. 2:2, Gal. 6:14).  The Lord’s Supper is a reenactment of and participation in the cross,  and it is always an essential part of our worship each Sunday.

Loving: The essential nature of God is love (1 John 4:7-8).  The essential way we love God is in loving others (1 John 4:20-21, 1 Cor. 13:13).  Jesus said that love for God and love for others are the two greatest commandments of the law.  Indeed, these two great loves are foundational to everything we seek to do as a church.  Though we are diverse racially, socially, and economically, we seek to treat one another in love despite those differences.

Serving: Paul says “serve one another in love” (Gal. 5:13).  Just as Jesus died for us, so we die for one another by meeting one another’s needs (1 John 3:16-18).  We seek to serve one another and our community through several diverse efforts— DUCO (a multi-church effort to help the poor), a support group for families with members who suffer from Bi-Polar Disorder, and a very active Boy Scout troop which we believe serves the youth of the community.

Praising:  Jesus said that if people don’t praise, the rocks would cry out (Luke 19:40); our job is to keep the rocks silent!  Worship is expressing humbly and exuberantly how much we love God… and why!  Our worship style is blended, using both familiar hymns and contemporary praise songs.  You may be surprised that we sing without musical accompaniment; this is both to stress the Bible command to sing and also to stress participation in worship.  Or you may be surprised by our “Praise Team” which helps to encourage participation in our song service and allow us to sing more unfamiliar (and difficult) contemporary songs.

Proclaiming:  We have been given a precious gift of knowing God’s grace through Jesus Christ.  When you know good news, you feel compelled to share it with others.   There are many ways in which we share the gospel at Denbigh.  We have Bible classes for all ages each week where the Bible is taught.  We support mission efforts in Uganda and Ukraine and other places around the world.  Our “Body Life” small groups meet in various homes each week to study scripture.  And we offer home Bible studies to people who are interested in studying more about the Bible.