Narembeen Church of Christ

Worship We recognise that people express worship to God in many different ways, but that it is important for us to be able to worship God together as one body, united in spirit and in truth. Often people will attend a church which best reflects their personal preferences in terms of worship, teaching and so on. In small towns like Narembeen it is simply not possible or desirable to have churches for every taste! While this means that it might not be possible to find a church that closely matches your preferences, it does mean that we have a wonderful opportunity to learn from one another and cater for one another's needs. Our goal is to have a balanced approach to worship that seeks to assist the church community to offer heartfelt and Christ-honouring worship to God. As such we reject labels like "traditional", "charismatic", "contemplative", "liturgical" and so on. Instead, we aim to stick by the following basic principles: Worship is about expressing ourselves appropriately to God. We tend to judge these things from the outside, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). God is our audience, not people. Whenever we worship together we want to make sure that God is receiving honour, gratitude, trust, love, obedience, zeal and so on. We don't believe that it matters to God whether those things are expressed in the most solemn of ancient hymns or the funkiest praise anthem, as long as they are sincere from the heart of the worshipper. The way we worship as a church reflects who we are and what God is doing in our lives, and must therefore be flexible and dynamic while at the same time maintaining a sense of historical continuity. We can't worship God with sincerity if we are not loving each other.
Service God has saved us, given us new life and equipped us to do good works that God has planned in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10). Service is not a list of tasks to do, but an approach to life which says "Just as God has blessed me, so I want to bless others." It is to follow the example of Jesus who gave Himself for others. There are many ways in which people in our church family serve one another and the communities of Narembeen, Kondinin and Hyden. Some of these activities are organised by the church, some involve joining in with existing community groups and some involve taking personal initiative to see a need and do something about it.
Discipleship As people who have been called to follow Jesus, we need to be paying attention to what He is saying and where He is leading. We need to be allowing Him to change us as individuals and as a group. Romans 12:1-2 encourages us to offer our whole selves to God as a living sacrifice - this is the sort of worship God requires. It's the attitude that says to God "I will follow you with everything I have - my time, relationships, hopes, possessions, opinions, desires - they all belong to you" The passage goes on to say the we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, and this is what allows us to know how to follow God and experience the blessings of doing so. Our church is committed to this process of seeing lives changed through renewed minds. This means that we take seriously the teaching and preaching of Scripture. We believe that it is the sure guide for faith and life that God has given to the Church. We believe that as the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it and put it into practice, that we are changed to better reflect Jesus Christ to each other and those around us.
Evangelism We believe that eternal life can only be found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Our responsibility is to be Christ's witnesses (Acts 1:8), charged with the task of helping people to become fully devoted followers of Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20). This desire to see people discover eternal life in Jesus infuses everything we do as a church community and as individual Christians. We don't want to be ashamed of Jesus or of our faith in Him, but to proclaim Him clearly and boldly. We aim to be respectful of and considerate toward other people's beliefs, but we are also committed to truth as revealed by Jesus and recorded in the Bible.
Fellowship When you have a group of people who relate to one another in ways that the Bible teaches, you have a group that is great to be a part of! We want our church to be characterised by those things that the Bible commands of us - things like love, acceptance, forgiveness, honesty, compassion, generosity, submission, service, enjoyment, hospitality, teamwork and so on.