About Us
Common Ground's Vision
Our vision is to be people from every walk of life pleasing God by depending on Jesus to set right relationships with God and others.
Common Ground's Mission
Our mission is to cultivate a community of all peoples who know, love and share Christ with our world -- one person, one neighborhood and one city at a time.
About Common Ground
Common Ground Church is dedicated to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and living the Grace of God.
Our core values are:
Grace
Grace, in it's truest sense, means that God loves us because of who He is, not who we are, and is always willing to extend forgiveness to those who ask [Lk 15, Ro 5:8]. God's grace and forgiveness are grounded in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and His resurrection [1Co 15:3-4; Ep 2:4-6; Co 1:20]. As God's people, we are to reflect God's love, caring for those He cares for and speaking His truth with the love of Christ [Ep 4:15].
Transformation
Transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. God desires for us to be transformed into the likeness of Christ [Ro 8:29, 12:2; Ep 5:8-14; Co 1:28-29]. Since we have received the Holy Spirit [Ro 5:5], we can respond accordingly -- how will we choose to live? [Ro 6-8; Ep 4:17-24].
Trust & Transparency
Trust & transparency comes in a place of love & grace. We acknowledge our brokenness and need for God and be comforted by God's people as we are being transformed by Him [2Co 1:3-5; Ga 5:13-15]. When there is trust because of love, we're able to share our burdens and minister to one another [Ga 6:1-3].
Family
Family is the paradigm for how we see and do ministry [Mt 18:15; Mk 3:35; 1Ti 5:1-2] -- it's how we see and interact with one another relationally.
Diverse
Diverse with regard to race, ethnicity, age and culture, reflecting the varied nature of the Body of Christ [Rv 5:9-11, 7:9-10]. Within the boundaries of Scripture, we value and recognize that Jesus is made known and experienced through different perspectives [Mk 6:34-44, 8:1-9; Lk 17:11-19; Jn 4:3-42; Ac 8:26-39].
Just as God has reconciled Himself to mankind [2Co 5:18-19], people are able to be reconciled to one another through Christ [1Co 12:13; 2Co 5:20; Ep 2:11-19].
Service / Outreach
Service/outreach are about how we minister to others on behalf of Jesus [Mt 5:38-6:4, 25:34-40; Jm 1:27]. It's an opportunity to care for others as God has cared for us [2Co 1:3-5].
Our Brief History
On Easter 2006, the congregations of Morning Star Bible Church (a predominantly Asian congregation) and Trinity Community Fellowship (an Anglo congregation) came together to form one community, Common Ground Church.
We came together because we felt God was calling each group to something bigger and better than what we were doing individually. Each church had come to a plateau point and the critical mass needed to sustain each group really wasn't there for what we were hoping to have happen. To some extent, what God had called each church, respectively, had run its course and there was something new on the horizon.
Prior to combining the churches, both congregations had spent time together to get to know one another through worship, service and fellowship together. For a number of months we had a pulpit exchange, with leaders from both congregations preaching to the other respective church community.
When the decision to combine was made, we decided that it would need to be a "rebirth" and not simply a merge. We were not necessarily combining two churches but starting a new one. The churches that existed before would cease to exist with the birth of a new congregation. People from both congregations were involved with forming a vision and different paradigm for being a church -- something distinct from what we each had before.
The core values of Common Ground represent what we believe is essential to how and why we do ministry. Our bearings are set on the Triune God, and we are invite people to participate with us in the Eternal Community of Father, Son and Spirit.
Because of our history and core values, Common Ground is committed to being multiracial and spanning the generations. A prevailing view and observation is that people prefer to be with those folks who are most like them. Because of this, a targeted approach to spreading the Gospel is being done by other churches, and we appreciate these efforts.
For Common Ground, we believe God is calling us to a place where there is a greater potential for conflict because we aren't like one another with regards to race, culture, education, age and income. What draws and keeps us together is that we all encounter Jesus in a different way because of these various life experiences. Christ is the One who will get us through our disagreements, as we share our respective "Christ-encounters" in a safe community.