Who We Are
Mission
Our mission is to join God in the renewal of all things where we live, work, learn, and play.
Vision
Our vision is to be a community gathered and scattered, living out the hope of Jesus in our cities so that God’s Kingdom can reign in every heart and every home in the cities of Ann Arbor, Brighton, Milan, Ypsilanti and beyond!
Core Values & Behaviors
Our core values flow from our desire to worship Jesus Christ, follow Him as disciplemakers, and participate in His redemptive mission. These inform and shape our Evergreen Community as we gather and scatter, living out the hope of Jesus in the places where we live, work, learn, and play.
Community
We value actually being friends with one another. We believe community is best formed in circles, not rows. We are an extended family with a shared mission. We go deep with one another and invite everyone to contribute out of the diversity of giftings, passions, and callings.
Rest
We value working from a place of rest. When the world says, “work harder and faster!”, we choose the counter-cultural acts of stopping, resting, delighting, and contemplating with and on the Lord. Jesus does not call us to sacrifice our health or family on the altar of mission and ministry. Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is take a nap!
Healing
We value Jesus as Healer. We receive God’s compassionate and holistic healing for personal and societal sickness from sin, a fallen world, and demonic forces. We extend healing in the fullness of the Spirit to our world through prayer, justice, mercy, generosity, and pursuing peace. When we do, we are witnessing renewal, restoration, and reconciliation.
Story
We value living as witnesses to King Jesus and the Kingdom of God through consistent engagement with the Scriptures. We create space to wrestle with God’s story of creation, incarnation, and re-creation, as well as our own stories. Doing so will help cultivate a missional spirituality influenced by the evangelical, sacramental, and charismatic streams of our Christian tradition.
Multiplication
We value reclaiming disciplemaking and church planting as central to following Jesus as Lord. Multiplication is the natural result from discipling disciplemakers, developing and deploying leaders in all APEST giftings, and planting the Gospel among new people groups and neighborhoods. As we experience the fullness of Jesus in our lives, we generously share with others by making disciples who make disciples where we live, work, learn, and play.
Disciples of Jesus
Our mission, vision, and values all guide us in our efforts to live as disciples of Jesus, to be people who are continuously growing in intimacy with and imitating His way of life. As we do this, we ask ourselves:
Are we loving up?
How am I enjoying the love of God? How am I being filled with the Spirit? How am I engaging in spiritual disciplines as a means of grace?
Are we loving in?
How am I making close spiritual friendships? How am I growing in the fruit of the Spirit? How am I developing in the gifts of the Spirit?
Are we loving out?
How am I following the Spirit’s lead as an everyday missionary? How am I making friends and offering hospitality to people in my context? How am I revealing the Kingdom through word and action?
Throughout the last century or more the American Church has been crippled by consumerism, materialism, individualism, and racism. So much so, that many of our neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family see no importance in being a part of it, let alone the Christian faith, because of personal hurt or its bad reputation. YET, there is a real spiritual need inside every human being. A longing to be known and loved. There is real darkness, brokenness, and division which exists in our families, neighborhoods, cities, nations, and world which so desperately need healing and wholeness; renewal and reconciliation; and Hope.
At Evergreen we believe the hope that the world so desperately needs is encapsulated in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We also believe that the local Church is the primary means and strategy through which Jesus desires to renew and reconcile families, neighborhoods, and whole cities.
We believe that the Church is meant to be a thriving and multiplying movement of radical followers and missionaries of Jesus Christ overflowing with the holy love of God and neighbor as they listen and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit. At Evergreen we are doing our best to receive the unconditional love of God through Jesus Christ and then give it away to everyone where we live, work, learn, and play because the Church isn’t a place, it’s a people. Inviting people to church looks like inviting people into our lives. We welcome you and invite you, no matter what you believe, into life with Jesus Christ through Evergreen Church because it’s where you belong.
To learn more about how we fit into the larger church and Christian community, visit our Affiliations page.