Sovereign Way Christian Church
Sovereign is part of our name because we believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe that God is the undisputed king of the universe, with total omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and benevolence. There is no one who can hold God’s hand back. He is king of the universe, and His will and decree shall always come to pass. The sovereignty of God provides comfort to the people of God because even in the midst of difficult circumstances, we know that God is still in control. He is always on His throne, and no one can snatch us out of His hand.
Way refers to the fact that the first name of the church was “The Way.” You find this as early as Acts 9:2. The reason the early believers designated themselves as The Way is because Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).” Jesus is the only way to the Father. Since Jesus commanded His church to call sinners to repentance by working as His witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), it make sense to see ourselves as providing the “way” to salvation. Therefore, in solidarity with the original church, we incorporated their title in our own. This title speaks of the fact that God’s way is salvation by grace, a message we want everyone to know.
Christian is the right word to describe those who believe on Christ for salvation. Although the Bible offers other designations as well (e.g., disciples, believers, etc.), the world rightly designated believers in this way in Acts 11:26, for we are followers of Christ Jesus. The world may have meant it as a term of derision early on, but eventually the church embraced this term as something to never be ashamed of (1 Peter 4:16). Nearly 2,000 years later, the whole world still understands that the word “Christian” is supposed to refer to those who follow Christ.
Church is the appropriate term to refer the people of God. This is what Christ called His body of followers (Matt 16:18; 18:17). The word church means “called out,” referring to the assembly of those that God has called out of the world. It is more than just a fellowship; it is more than just a community; it is more than just a movement. It is a people chosen in grace before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) to be kings and priests (Revelation 1:6), saved by the blood of Christ. Christ has united Jew and Gentile in this one body by adding Gentile believers to believing Israel (Romans 11:17-24), and the church bears the mission of proclaiming the gospel to all nations since people from every nation, tribe, and tongue will be saved (Revelation 7:9).
We Grow Together
The New Testament teaches that the church as Christ’s body must be devoted to the growth of the body. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation. In fact, spiritual growth is impossible apart from active involvement in the local church. The Scriptures exhort all believers to edify other members by practicing the numerous “one-another” statements of the New Testament (e.g., Hebrews 10:24-25). Through the mutual use of spiritual gifts and mutual scriptural accountability, believers can and will grow deeper in their relationship to Jesus Christ. So we invite you to come and grow with this devoted assembly of Christ-followers.
We Serve Each Other
The Bible teaches that all believers are called by God to serve one another with their spiritual gifts. This is what is meant by the command to “love one another” (John 13:34-35; Romans 12:10). Therefore, we are called to exercise our spiritual gifts for the building up of the body of Christ (Romans 12:6-8; 1 Peter 4:10-11). Truly, the exhortations to this kind of ministry can only be fulfilled by believers who have committed themselves to other believers in a specific local church. If you would like to know more about what it means to serve one another in love, and why it is important, feel free to listen to the following sermon from one of our pastors.
We Serve the Community
Sovereign Way has an active and robust mercy ministry that seeks to alleviate temporal suffering of those in our community. We offer food and clothing to those who are impoverished. Additionally, we partner with local organizations dedicated to helping the poor. We also partner with local pregnancy centers and rescue missions. If you want to know more, come check us out.
We Give to Missions
All four Gospels have a commission to the church to preach the gospel to and make disciples of people from all nations. The book of Acts also contains this same commission (Acts 1:8). This Great Commission is the reason the church exists. Our goal is to raise up missionaries that we can send to unreached people groups, but even with that goal, the New Testament shows us that biblical, local churches cooperate with other biblical churches for Great Commission purposes (Romans 15:22-29). This cooperation is achieved through the combining of funds to send missionaries out into the world. It is for this reason that we proudly partner with the International Mission Board and Grace Ministries International. We also support other missionaries apart from these organizations. Missions is not only an international endeavor, but even in North America more churches need to be planted. Furthermore, biblically solid chaplains need to be sent to the military, prisons, and hospitals. Therefore, we proudly partner with the North American Mission Board to that end. Through them, we have given one of our own pastors as chaplain to the United States Army Reserves.