Mission Statement

Pointing people to Jesus Christ
so that together
we become more and more like him

The Vision of the Leadership of The Evangelical Free Church of Hershey

Our vision for the Evangelical Free Church of Hershey is that we will grow into the kind of congregation that truly pleases the Lord Jesus, our Savior, Lord, and Head of the church. We desire to fulfill the vocation he has given us as a congregation. In order to continually do greater things for the Kingdom of Christ, we must be willing to be stretched beyond what we are now.

We believe that God’s grace has fallen upon us in unexpected ways and undeserved measure in the past, and we pray that any spiritual fruit that he has produced through us will remain until he comes. We desire to continue and improve those ways of ministering that have brought glory to the Lord and benefit to people. We hope to identify those that have not, and eliminate or change them so that we might better reflect the mind and will of Christ.

We recognize that without the Lord we can do nothing. None of the following aspirations can be achieved without the ever-present empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Only by depending on God’s enabling grace and following his leading can we hope to fulfill the aspirations he has placed within us. All these are summed up in one, overarching aspiration: the glory of Christ, God’s Son and our Lord and Savior.

Through much prayerful study and discussion, we as leaders have become convinced that the Lord Jesus wants us to aspire to being a church that will …

1. … be BIBLICALLY-BASED in all we do, understanding that God has revealed himself most assuredly and fully in the Scriptures, which are his inerrant and authoritative written word and which uniquely unveil to us the Living Word, Jesus, God’s Son. This means that Scripture must be the final norm guiding and judging all we do and believe. We want to be a congregation of people who love the Word, read it daily, study and memorize it, and understand how to rightly interpret it and apply it to our everyday lives. It must be central to our worship, the main text for our educational ministries, and the book most honored in all our homes.

2. … be WORSHIPFUL in all we do, believing that worshipping God is our first responsibility, highest purpose and greatest joy. We want to become a church of worshippers whose lives and ministries bring glory to God. A church whose public services are focused foremost on ministry to God more than to one another and are geared not to creating spectators but to creating participants in worship. We want to become a church that draws non-Christians to the faith through their observing us as we sincerely, passionately worship the Lord. Because our unity as a whole congregation is best expressed in our common worship, we will endeavor to make our public worship services accessible and meaningful to every generation as we worship together. We will encourage families to worship together while also promoting the orderliness that furthers everyone’s worship. Other outreach and worship gatherings may be styled to appeal to particular segments or ages of our congregation or community as is best for achieving their purposes, as long as those gatherings are honoring to God.

3. … be PRAYERFUL, believing that it is only God who can change lives, families, communities, and nations. Prayer must have an increasingly pivotal place in all we do in obedience to the Lord, who commands us to pray, and in view of the privilege he affords us to effect changes through prayer. Being absolutely dependent upon God to work out his will among us, we will encourage prayer as a whole body through announced seasons of prayer, periodic concerts of prayer, small group prayer, prayer by the leaders, by departments, by praying in virtually every gathering of our people. We will provide special places for prayer, special times for prayer, and prayer groups dedicated to praying for the ministry of the church.

4. … be WELCOMING to all, especially those who are not a part of us. We will seek to do this by refusing to show favoritism based on gender, material status, ethnicity or spiritual state, by being quick to extend grace rather than judgment, by greeting all with warmth and acceptance. This will include making our church’s facilities easily accessible to those unfamiliar with us and to those who move about with difficulty. We will attempt to communicate the gospel in ways that are easily understood by those outside the church, and we will open our facilities, whenever feasible, to the community for its use. We will create facilities and grounds that are attractive, useful, and inviting to the community by their beauty and order. Most importantly, we will endeavor to be attractive in attitude and behavior in order to provide a winsome witness to any whom God brings our way.

5. … be a CARING COMMUNITY, understanding that we grow best in meaningful relationships with others. We want to be a church in which people of every age are involved and have a place to belong (where they fit, are loved, cared for and encouraged); a place to find direction (where they learn how to listen to God, ask questions, and seek the guidance of others); a place to be challenged (confronted with their sin, spurred on toward love and good deeds, and held accountable for their commitments before God); a place to take off their mask (to be truly open and authentic, disclosing their brokenness, temptations, sins, and where they can celebrate their joys, blessings, and successes); a place to give (according to their capacity, using their gifts, contributing to something beyond themselves). We will encourage and provide opportunities for all our people to participate in smaller groups: ministry teams, community groups, prayer groups, Bible studies, and other smaller groups.

6. … be dedicated to STRENGTHENING OUR FAMILIES, believing that our families are the God-given way for children to be brought into this world, nurtured in the Lord, cared for and loved so that they might become spiritually mature disciples of Christ continuing in supportive and special relationships with each other as long as they live on earth. To this end, we want to be a church that encourages our families to worship together, to know how to love each other, have fun together and work together. We want our families to be ones in which the children are both cherished and obedient, and the parents are devoted to raising their children well. We want to be a church that assists husbands and wives in living out and being faithful to their covenant of marriage in ways honoring to the Lord.

7. … be REACHING OUT to those who are not believers in order that they might know the love of Christ, the way of salvation, and come to him. We believe that we exist as a congregation in order to minister first to God and then to those not yet a part of us. We will continually look for better ways to seek the lost and to witness to them concerning God’s grace. We want to be a congregation of “contagious” Christians, instructed in and equipped to share the gospel of Christ. We will seek to witness individually and corporately both to individual persons and to our whole community. We will make special effort to reach out to segments of our community that are most at-risk spiritually. We will reach beyond our own community by planting other churches when it appears that a new church in that place will enhance the Kingdom of Christ and the Lord grants us the resources to accomplish it, either as a single congregation or in partnership with others.

8. … be MAKING DISCIPLES, understanding that our job is not simply to “win converts” but to help people grow in faith, love and obedience to Christ, and be involved in helping others become disciples of Christ. A disciple is one who is becoming like Christ. Our discipleship ministry must have an organic connection to all we do. It should be the goal of every ministry to others, including our preaching, teaching, shepherding, fellowshipping, and serving. Discipling of others can take place in large gatherings, smaller groups, and in one-to-one relationships. We will endeavor to be always guided by Christ’s final commission to his disciples: to make disciples of all the nations. Until that is the case, our job is not done.

9. … be EQUIPPING her members for ministry. It is clear from the Scriptures that the ministry of the church belongs to all her members. Leaders are given to the church in order to equip (motivate, train, provide resources for, and support) the laity for fulfilling the task of the church. We will endeavor to equip people in the church for ministering according to their gifts and God-given passion. We envision the equipping being provided in each department, across departmental lines and from the pulpit. Our goal will be to have every individual ministering as God has commanded.

10. … be a SERVING COMMUNITY, serving one another within the church as each has need and serving the larger community and world through the gifts and resources God has given us. We will endeavor to follow Christ’s example of being sent to minister, not being ministered to. We want to increase our service to our neighbors through compassionate benevolence and practical ministries, both as individuals, as groups from the church and as a whole church. We will attempt to witness to God’s love by offering our services, resources and labor to our surrounding communities and neighbors in need.

11. … be a JUSTICE-SEEKING CONGREGATION, willing to speak out against evil and injustice and to promote righteousness in our society and justice for those who are denied it. We will endeavor to engage in the struggles for human life and dignity that go on around us, and to use our voices and resources to support those whose rights are being denied. We will seek to identify and aid those groups in our communities who have a special need for advocacy.

12. … be a SENDING COMMUNITY, dedicated to sensitizing our people to the needs of the world and the call of the Lord to minister the gospel cross-culturally, especially to people who have not had an opportunity to hear the gospel. We want to be a church that is informed about world-wide needs, focused on fulfilling the Great Commission through praying, giving and sending our people to minister far away as well as nearby. We want to continue our focus on supporting and caring for our missionaries who need our support as they labor on the frontiers of spiritual need. Short-term mission efforts will be promoted as a way of introducing our people to cross-cultural ministry. We will endeavor to increase our equipping of nationals for ministering the gospel in their culture.

All of the above we hope, by God’s grace, to do in faithfulness to him and out of love for him. We will seek to do everything we do with excellence and beauty, using whatever resources God has made available to us. Fulfilling some of the above will be continuing what God has already enabled us to do. Some of it will be the breaking of new ground for us. It all represents that to which we aspire until God shows us differently, or until he comes. May that be soon!