Our Mission

Mission statements all seem to sound kind of the same. Because in reality, we are all shooting for the same target. Well, usually.

We thought and prayed about how we can summarize what we feel God is leading us to do in one sentence. We wanted to incorporate both our passion for how awesome Jesus is and our dependence on Him with the Vine and Branches terminology. After many re-writes, here is our mission statement:

Fully dependent upon Jesus, the Vine and the Branches exists to proclaim His Gospel, making disciples that will go out and bless the city of Spokane for His glory

Let me break this down briefly.

As stated in the last post, we are all about Jesus and His Gospel. Everything we do is to give Him glory and focus people to the one hope for all humanity. He is the reason we have hope for eternity and joy for living. Therefore, we are fully dependent on Jesus and exist to proclaim His Gospel.

Our mission, our mandate, our job, is to make disciples. Jesus told us as much in His Commission. We believe that the Scriptures teach this is a lifelong process, not one that starts after a certain level of maturity is reached.

If you think about it, for most people who come to know King Jesus, the process of discipleship starts before "conversion". They are friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors who see our transformed lives and something stirs in their hearts to know more. What is so great about this is that we get the opportunity to introduce them to Savior of the world. The true hope for humanity. God's Spirit grips them and the Rebels throw down their weapons and fall down at God's matchless Grace given to us through Jesus.

But discipleship does not end there. We are called as a people to shepherd each other in the new life we have been given. Some need to learn the basics of our faith, as newborns need milk. Some disciples are ready for solid food and growth from just milk. Some are mature and need to step out in faith to disciple others. This is a lifelong process, happening all around us. Our goal is to make disciples.

We also have a strong desire to bless Spokane. A great city, coming into its own identity. But like any city, there is more work to go around than bodies to do it. We are a part of the city, we receive good things from the city, we participate with the city as it grows and changes. As good citizens of an eternal Kingdom, we have the opportunity to bless our city and our neighbors by engaging with them to make Spokane a more beautiful place.

Ultimately, it all goes back to Jesus though. It is for His glory that we do all of this. Not ours. It is His story, not ours. It is His mission, not ours. Everything we do should be a spotlight pointing people to Jesus.