Our Purpose

Life Point Baptist Church exists to glorify God by pointing unbelievers to new life in Christ and believers to abundant life through Christ.

Our purpose as a church is to glorify God (Rom 11:33–36; Eph 3:15–18) because Christ purchased the church through his death (Col 1:15–18), and he is our Lord (Eph 5:23–24). Glorifying God requires that we intentionally direct glory to God in how we depend on the Lord and minister to others (2 Cor 4:7–12). Glorifying God also requires that we represent him accurately by obeying his will (1 Sam 15:22–23). We desire to be a God-centered church. We are opposed to any philosophy of ministry that prioritizes man’s desires over God’s.

Our Mission

The local church primarily glorifies God by fulfilling the mission he gave us to make disciples. Making disciples requires reaching people with the gospel and seeing them grow into maturity. Life Point is committed to aggressively reaching our community with the gospel and to building mature disciples who love and obey God, love and serve their fellow-man, and reproduce themselves through evangelism and discipleship. We are also committed to partnering with missionaries and church planters in order to see disciple-making churches established throughout Southern California, the USA, and the entire world (Matt 28:19–20; Acts 1:8).

Our Values

Word-Centered Ministry

The Holy Spirit works primarily through the Bible to save the lost and produce spiritual growth (Rom 10:14–17; John 17:17). As a result, theologically rich Bible preaching and teaching will be the foundation of our ministry and the dominant feature of our regular services.

Grace-Centered Holiness

The Bible commands Christians to resist worldliness and to live holy lives (1 Pet 1:13–16). The Bible also teaches that we can only achieve true holiness when we depend on God’s grace (1 Cor 15:10; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:6) and work hard at spiritual growth (Phil 3:14; Heb 12:1). As a result, our worship and instruction will emphasize the gospel and the grace it provides, and it will call us to aggressively pursue holiness in the power of God’s grace.

Grace-Centered Unity

We will pursue a God-centered unity that distinguishes us as disciples of Christ. We will build a culture where we are pushing other toward holiness and discernment (Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 9:19–23; Eph 5:10) while also extending room for disagreement in areas that are not essential to the unity of the church (Rom 15:1–7).

People-Centered Ministry

We believe that Spirit-filled Christians—not programs, events, or elite ministers—make the church effective. The pastor’s duty is not to do all of the work of the ministry; instead, he is to equip church members to minister to each other (Eph 4:11–13). We will encourage every member to use his or her spiritual gift(s) to invest in the growth of the church. We will also encourage every member to cultivate meaningful relationships in the church by which they will give and receive spiritual care.

Our Practices

Worship

We are committed to God-focused, congregationally driven, conservative worship.

God-Focused: The primary purpose of worship is not to entertain an audience but to please the Lord by praising him for his greatness and thanking him for his gifts (Heb 13:15). We are committed to using songs with theologically rich lyrics that magnify God and the gospel. The music must complement and magnify the truth of the song, not overshadow it.

Congregationally Driven: The focus of our worship will be Spirit-filled, congregational singing that equips and encourages believers to press on in their faith (Eph 5:18–20).

Conservative: Based on our understanding of worldliness, we believe that music has moral significance within a cultural context. We want to use music that reflects our cultural context while resisting worldliness. It must communicate reverence and holiness. It must also be accessible to the congregation, meaning that they can understand the words and sing the music with confidence.

Instruction

The lifeblood of the church is expositional preaching that is focused on tracing the argument of a text or biblical book, finding the authorial intent, and demonstrating its significance for life (2 Tim 4:1–5). We want to provide preaching that is rooted in the text of Scripture yet relevant to modern life, theologically rich yet understandable, and convicting yet encouraging.

We are also committed to providing age-appropriate but theological rich instruction for children and teens and to teaching adults how to biblically address the challenges that come with each life stage (e.g., financial stewardship, parenting).

Fellowship

The NT describes the local church as an interdependent body or family (Rom 12:3–8). When we worship, we are not only meeting with God; we are also meeting with each other to help each other grow (Heb 10:24–25). Therefore, meaningful fellowship is a vital aspect of our weekly worship and of all our activities together. We must foster close relationships where members bear burdens and partner together in pursuing godliness (Heb 3:12–13).

Evangelism

We are committed to aggressively pursuing our community with the gospel (1 Cor 9:16, 19–23). The heart of the church’s evangelistic efforts ought to be relational evangelism where members are cultivating redemptive relationships with unbelievers in their normal sphere of influence. We want to support relational evangelism by challenging each other to engage in evangelism, by training our members to share the gospel, and by providing programs and events where the gospel will be proclaimed.

Life Point 101

For more information about our church's history, practices, and distinctives, check out the notes and audio from our Life Point 101 class (intro to our church); or download our church constitution.