Vision
To multiply healthy spiritual leaders and catalyze a church planting movement to impact communities, nations and our world for the Kingdom of God.
Mission
A Four Fold Purpose
Vanguard Ministries is an apostolic network focused on releasing the potential in Christian leaders and churches through empowering relationships, innovative equip ping, and authentic community resulting in the multiplication of their impact.
Building Healthy Churches
Church planting and strengthening churches
Caring for Ministry Leaders
Coaching, accountability, connecting
Equipping Ministry Leaders
Seminars, events, resources
Reaching the World
Improving outreach and evangelism, cross-cultural missions
Statement of Faith
Inspiration of Scriptures
We believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments by the Holy Spirit as originally given; they are the final authority for our faith and life.
II Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:12
God
We believe in one God revealed in three coequal, distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19-20; Ephesians 2:18
Man
We believe that man in his natural state is a sinner, lost, undone, without hope and without God.
Ephesians 2:1-2; Romans 3:23
Divinity & Humanity of Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who by His incarnation and virgin birth took upon Himself the form of man and became the God-Man. In the one person of Christ, there are two natures, human and divine, each in its completeness and integrity. They are distinguishable but indivisible, so that He is fully man and fully God. He lived a sinless life and became the only sacrifice for the sins of the world
Ephesians 1:3-5; Romans 5:1-11; Acts 12:4; I Peter 1:18-19
Bodily Resurrection
We believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Luke 24:38-43; John 20:24-29
Salvation
We believe that terms of salvation are repentance towards God for sin and a personal heart-felt faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which results in regeneration. This salvation is entirely by grace and not by works.
Ephesians 2:6-10; Romans 5:1; Acts 3:19-20
Second Coming
We believe in the visible, bodily return of Christ to this earth to judge the world and to claim His Bride.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 1:7
Church
We believe that the church is Christ’s spiritual body on earth today. It consists of born-again believers and has both universal and local expressions.
Matthew 16:18; Acts 20:28
Heaven & Hell
We believe in the doctrines of eternal punishment for the lost and eternal bliss and service for the saved; hell for the unsaved and heaven for the saved.
John 14:1–3; Revelation 20:11–15
Satan
We believe that Satan is a fallen, created being who is the “god of this world”. He and his well-organized company of demons are opposed to the Kingdom of God and work to defeat and destroy the believer. While his activity is real, Satan and his demon spirits were defeated and overthrown by Christ’s victory at the cross.
Luke 10:17-20; Colossians 2:13-15; Ephesians 6:10-18
Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit to be the third person of the Godhead who is active in the world today. The Spirit indwells and seals the believer at new birth. We believe the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a subsequent experience and is available to all Christians to empower us to be witnesses. We believe in, and encourage, the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16-17; Acts 1:8; 2:1-4
Ordinances
We believe that believer’s Water Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances of the church and should be practiced regularly.
Acts 2:38; Romans 6:3-10; I Corinthians 10:16-21
Our Values
Church Planting
We value the practice church planting as essential to our mission, and will aggressively promote it as a goal for all healthy churches. We support and engage in planting churches both nationally and cross-culturally. We partner with emerging national leaders who are gripped with a passion to establish New Testament churches aimed at the remaining Unreached People Groups.
Gift Ministry
The operation of the fivefold ministry gifts described in Ephesians 4:11 is imperative for the maturing of the church. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are essential for equipping God’s people for the work of ministry. Local congregations are encouraged to receive from the grace-gifts of fivefold leaders.
Beauty in Diversity
We value relating to each other as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-gifted blend of leaders and churches whose focus is not on social, economic, racial, or gender distinctions, but on our unity and identity in Christ. We will unashamedly and intentionally promote the development of multi-ethnic leadership teams and ministries as an expression of the heart of the Father for authentic reconciliation ministry.
Relationship-Based Ministry
We consider healthy, authentic relationships to be indispensable for spiritual leaders. Our network will be based on the foundation of interpersonal relationships organization must emerge from personal relationships. We will encourage the practical relational designs of mentoring, coaching, discipling, and cell-based ministry strategies to balance the “one-winged” traditional church meeting paradigm
Character & Integrity
We recognize servant leadership, integrity, and a godly character as the standard for all ministry and leadership. As humans we tend to value gifts and skills as the most important, but God places the priority on character and heart issues. We believe that while talents and gifts are useful, they must function from a foundation of godly character.
Life-long Learning
We consider leaders as life-long learners. Intentionally posturing ourselves to maintain personal, spiritual and professional development requires sacrifice and commitment, but the dividends of ongoing usefulness in the Kingdom of God make it worthwhile. This encourages and equips us as leaders who intend to finish well!
Racial Reconciliation
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah
6:8 (ESV)
Vanguard Racial Reconciliation Statement