​Jesus’ mission is a robust vision for our individual lives, the community called the “Church,” and all of God’s Creation. In other words, as we receive the blessing of God, we are filled to overflowing with a grace that transforms our lives and outward to transform the Church, our neighborhoods, all nations, and the creation itself. This was God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:2, “I will bless you…so that you will be a blessing.” 

​The Goal of Discipleship
The New Testament word “disciple” conveys being a student, follower, learner, even an imitator. Perhaps even better, we can see the word illustrated in how Jesus interacts with his own disciples. He lives life with them, teaches, sends them on adventures together, interprets current events, processes experiences, and more—all in light of the Kingdom of God, the new reality he is teaching them to live into.

​Most centrally, Christian discipleship should be shaped by:

1. The Great Commandment (Mark 12:29-31)

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”

1. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20)

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

​​What Is Worship?
There are many ways of defining, describing, and illustrating what worship is—at its core. If we strip away the particular songs and structures (which vary from church to church and culture to culture), what IS worship? A definition we work with here at Point Place UCC goes like this:

​As we are sown in God’s Story, 
we reap the expression of praise and the formation of lives.
 
Thus, the goal of worship is to help the people of God develop roots into the Story (the Scriptures, the Gospel, the Story of God’s work in the world), and then to create space where God’s people can express praise in response to that Story and have their lives formed by that Story.