WHO WE ARE - Keeping it Simple

Our Mission:
To love the people of Abbotsford into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to love God with everything, and to love our neighbour.

We want to draw people to Jesus through the unity of the city church, expressing its love for people through simple acts of kindness with no strings attached. And we also want to show our love for God through worship, service, and our love for one another.

Our Vision:

• To promote unity among the churches as we work together toward a common task.
   
• To touch as many unbelievers as possible through servant evangelism - redefining the church, breaking barriers and building bridges moving them toward Christ.
   
• To help establish ongoing servant evangelism within the local Church context.
  

Our Key Values:

1. Love Abbotsford is based on the generousity of God spilling out of our lives, and out of our churches into the lives of the people in our communities. The method we're using is called "servant evangelism" which is offering people free gifts or services to show God's love in a practical way - no strings attached!
    
2. Love Abbotsford is based on the belief/assumption that church unity and cooperation is central in reaching our communities for Jesus. For this reason it is very significant that a number of churches and denominations are participating together in this event.
    
3. Love Abbotsford is based on the two commandments of Jesus - to love God with everything, and to love our neighbour. The kindness explosion is our expression of the second one, and an evening worship celebration is our expression of the first. These two work very well together!
    
4. Love Abbotsford is based on the belief/assumption that experiencing the kindness of God is a key step in people moving towards repentance. For this reason we do not want to attach other messages, tracts, or church distinctives beyond that for this event*. Having your church's name, phone number, website, etc. on the back of the kindness card can provide a helpful link for those wishing to take "a next step".
    
5. Love Abbotsford expresses kindness to people by giving people goods or services for free. Why? To express to them the free love of the Father. For this reason we do not receive donations from those we've served.
    
6. Love Abbotsford is based on the belief/assumption that showing love needs to cost us something. Therefore we do not solicit money from people or business's to offset our costs, or try to get goods or services for free. We say this, because often our first reaction is to see what we can get donated to us, so that our outreach won't cost as much. It needs to cost us something! Having said that, businesses may donate some items or give them to us for a cheaper price, but with no expectation of advertising for them. We start from this point - that all costs for the outreaches be born by the participating churches and/or members within those churches - and see what happens after that.
    
7. Love Abbotsford is done in the name of Jesus. We are doing this because of the kindness of God expressed through his son, Jesus. Although we make the use of products and donations toward this purpose, we desire to make the name of Jesus famous, not advertise or build up corporations or local businesses. For this reason we want to avoid the type of underwriting that many business's provide if there is an expectation of exposure or promotion as a return benefit.

* we believe that God can and does use all sorts of methods for evangelism - ie. street preaching, tracts, evangelistic crusades, etc. - but believe that this is a significant time for the city church to simply show the love of Christ without any other "string" that people may be expecting to have attached to our message.