Jesus told his first followers, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Luke 10:2 ESV). His point was that God intended a global movement in which every follower of Jesus would participate with others in spreading the great news about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Mission
Church on the Height's mission is built on the mission given by Jesus to make disciples. We simply say that we are reclaiming the Heights for Christ, one person at a time.
Values
Knowing and following Jesus means that we are becoming more like him in character and action. We value the following practices, worded as questions, to help us become more and more like Jesus:
- Sharing Jesus: Who am I praying for that is far from God?
- Time with God: What ways did I engage with God this week?
- Serving: Where am I serving to build the kingdom?
- Growing in Community: Who am I mentoring and who is mentoring me?
- Generosity: How am I growing in generosity?
- Emotionally, Healthy Spirituality: How can I become a whole person?
- Ritz Carlton Customer Service: How do I provide excellence in every area of my life?
- Prayer: What will help me walk closer with God and other people?
Vision
In the years ahead we envision our mission being fulfilled as we fuel a movement of passionate, outsider-seeking churches that are built with a multiplication DNA to reach Cleveland Heights and beyond. We will accomplish this through a combination of multisite and church planting strategies.
- Multisite: As the church grows, we will pursue opportunities to extend Church on the Heights to new communities around us.
- Church Planting: We will deliberately build up pastors and leaders who will launch new churches in new locations.
Leadership Distinctives
While churches share much in common in their belief in Jesus, churches also have unique cultures. The following leadership values will tell you something about our unique culture and calling:
- We don't play it safe; we follow Jesus.
We believe big, pray big, but start small. We choose to think outside of the box but we purposefully do less to accomplish more. - Jesus is our message.
We are Jesus people, not religious people. Methods will come and go, yet our message will remain the same. Furthermore, our mission to connect Jesus to outsiders trumps preferences for insiders. - We don't lead to maintain but to multiply.
We believe the leader wins by growing fruit on other people's trees. We lead toward a movement that multiplies outward not to protect what we've built. - We choose to take the hill and take it together.
The church is a multi-generational, ethnically diverse team on a mission to help others know and follow Jesus. We are extremely dedicated to this mission, and we are highly dedicated to each other.
Church on the Heights is affiliated with Converge, a movement of churches working to help people meet, know, and follow Jesus by starting and strengthening churches together worldwide.
