Purpose:         The purpose of Brea Center Baptist Church is to expand a passion for the supremacy of God in all things by making disciples of Jesus Christ who are multiplying other disciples (Col. 1:28-29; 2 Timothy 2:2; Matthew 28:19-20) for the joy of all people and the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14; Psalm 37:4; Psalm 16:11; Romans 12:1-2; John 4:23-24).

Our product:         The most important aspect of our church is the product we produce. Our product is a mature, fruitful, growing disciple of Jesus Christ. We define a mature disciple as a believer who is:

• Savoring the Vision through
• Exalting God by worshiping God in all that they do.
• Esteeming Christ Jesus over themselves, family, friends, work, and interests as the all satisfying treasure and love of their lives.
  
  
• Strengthing the Vision through
• Establishing one another in Christ through loving nurture, relational community, cirricular Bible study,  Biblical theology, joyful fellowship, intentional assimilation, & humble prayer.
• Enhancing their commitment to their family and to the development of a God centered home.
  
• Shaping the Vision  through
• Equipping themselves in Christ-like maturity by practicing the basic disciplines of the Christian life through instruction, accounability, and intimacy.
• Enabling other believers to bear fruit in ministry, to support the work of ministry, and to become disciplemaking leaders in an area of ministry and mission God has called them to.
  
• Spreading the Vision Through
• Evangelizing by taking the initiative to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ starting in their own locale.
• Extending disciplemaking to the world (See Appendix 1 for fuller definition).
  

Our Philosophy of Equipping and Equippers
1.      The Senior Pastor's role and commitment is to live and model an authentic Christian life of godliness. The senior pastor’s role is also that of a"shephard-coach," and his task is primarily to teach and preach the Word of God (2 Tim. 4:1-2), graciously expose and refute error (1 Timothy 1:3-5, 5:1-2), give direction for the leadership (1 Peter 5:1-4), cast the vision of disciplemaking before all the people (Matthew 28:18-20), train leaders (Eph. 4:11-16), willingly suffer hardship and persecution in service for the Lord (2 Timothy 1:8, 2:3-13, 4:5), and be a model disciple for others (2 Tim. 2:2, 1Tim. 4:12). He is responsible to encourage, develop and protect the disciplemaking process (1 Timothy 4:1-16; 1 Timothy 5:17-18). He should seldom perform ministries lay leaders could do unless it is absolutely necessary in order to devote himself to these biblical priorities of a pastor.

2.      The role of the other pastors and ministerial staff members are the same as that of the senior pastor in that staff member’s area of ministry. All Pastoral staff and ministerial staff are to model discipleship in their own lives by reproducing disciples, releasing them to do ministry and giving them encouragement, support, and direction while maintianing accountability (2 Timothy 2:2; Galatians 6:1-2; Matthew 25:34-40; James 5:14-15)

3.      The role of our deacons is to be actively involved in serving their specific areas of caring ministry and to be models in the discipleship process (1 Tmothy 3:13). The deacons oversee the physical needs of the church, reporting to the pastor(s).

4.      The role of our lay leaders is to model discipleship, to grow in their own ministry skills, and to equip the rest of the congregation for ministry. They are to be actively involved in leading in their specific areas of ministry. Leaders will be recognized during the disciplemaking process by considering character, giftedness, virtue, commitment, and proven experience, as demonstrated over time through this training process. All leaders must be growing disciples and committed to the church’s doctrinal statement and philosophy of ministry. A key point to our philosophy of leadership is that our leaders are servants who are exercising their ministry gifts. We will seek to minimize the number of policy makers and maximize the number of persons doing ministry.

5.      The church member’s role and responsibility is to grow as a disciple, to be trained to use his/her gifts, to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to directly minister to Christians, and to seek to win those to Christ who do not know Him. The church will encourage individuals to develop and employ their gifts in ministry in order to be creative, pro-active, need oriented, and decentralized in disciplemaking. We offer regular teaching on spiritual gifts as a means for people to discover how God has gifted them personally. We recognize servant gifts as being equally important as leadership gifts in building a healthy, disciple making church.

6.      Within the Body of Christ, the Spirit has gifted and appointed certain members to serve God’s people by providing leadership. While those not so gifted and appointed are equal to those who are, they serve a different function and in this sense do not share the same level of leadership authority.

7.      To ensure their spiritual growth and good stewards of their spiritual gifts, all pastors, deacons, small group leaders, Bible Fellowship (Sunday school) teachers and outreach leaders will meet in our Ministry Community or with their disciplemaker at least twice a month.

8.      All leaders of church ministries will take part in on-going leader training to constantly develop the gifts God has given them.

Our Philosophy of church Ministries (Programs and structures)
9.      In Mark 12:29-31 (Matt. 22:36-40, The Great Commandment), Jesus not only commands every church to organize to love and worship God, but also gives every church and thus the pastor and church leaders a direct Biblical responsibility to organize the ministry and group infrastructure of the church in order to produce healthy and loving relationships. Since the church is a family of families and a group of groups, each group (i.e. worship celebrations services, Bible fellowships [Sunday schools], small groups, task groups, families, etc.) needs to know its purpose in making disciples in relation to all the other groups in the church. This group infrastructure must by supported by accountability.

10.  The purpose of every activity of our church is to glorify God by producing and furthering the development of disciples of Jesus Christ. We will continually evaluate every structure, program and activity in our church by its effectiveness in meeting the purposes of worship and disciple making. We will modify or discontinue any structure, program or activity that does not effectively enhance worship or disciple making.

11.  To accomplish our tasks the church has three basic kinds of structures (see 12, 13, 14 below) that together make disciples. Members are strongly encouraged to be involved in all three of these structures.

12.  Exalt - The first is our worship or celebration service(s), which emphasizes worship in a celebrative style and expository teaching of God's Word in order to help people become and continue to grow as disciples. The primary function of Worship Services will be true worship and th proclamation of God's word,while providing an atmosphere that is warm and accepting of newcomers (Acts 2:42-47). We desire to have a participatory worship service where we celebrate our unity and oneness in Christ. Worship is the goal and the fuel for all ministry and missions.

13.  Establish- Second, we have Bible Fellowships (Sunday school classes), which are medium sized segmented open groups where Bible teaching, fellowship, sharing, and evangelism are emphasized. Our Bible Fellowships are designed to be key places where fellowship, outreach, assimilation, and service take place.

14.  Equip - Our third structure is the small group (also known as cell group or community group), where accountability is developed in an intimate setting through bible study, prayer and encouragement. The small group is the primary structure for making disciples in our church. We offer small groups at different maturity levels to develop sequential growth for disciples. We see one-on-one approaches as valid and sometimes necessary, but only as a secondary method for most in our church.

16.  In order to promote loving relationships, we will establish a healthy balance between Worship Service(s) (large groups of >70 people for unity), Bible Fellowships (Sunday school classes) (medium-sized groups of 18-70 people for fellowship - Normally about 25-50 people), and small groups (of <18 for intimacy, usually 5-15 people) to provide the proper group and relational infrastructure for the disciplemaking process.

17.  The group structure will be set up so that no one will be expected to attend two groups of the same dynamic, style, and function.

18.  Enable- One of the types of small groups is our Ministry or Leadership Community. This is the small group for those in leadership. It includes vision casting, skill building, planing, and accountability so the leadership will maintian and to continue to develop spiritual disciplines. One must have been a part of a Basic Accountability Group (BAG) before one is elegible for memberhip in the Ministry Community. This ensures that all leaders are trained and accountable to practice the disciplines of a disciple of Jesus Christ.

19.  Evangelism - The importance of evangelism is a common thread stressed at all levels of ministry and is the starting point for discipleship. Relational evangelism will be our primary emphasis but will not exclude other effective means of outreach (2 Cor. 5:17-21; 1 Cor. 3:6-9; 1 Cor. 9:19-23). Since ever member is a part of the evangelism ministry of the church, we will give different levels of opportunities for everyone to be actively involved in evangelism, so no one will be left out nor have an excuse. Every group will understand its role in relationship to the evangelism ministry of the church. Every one will be encouraged to grow in their commitment to evangelism both personally and corporately.

20.  The management of all ministries will be delegated to the leaders of those ministries, and accountability will be maintained through leadership training meetings and normal disciplemaking channels.

21.  We will, whenever possible, use ministries, task forces, and discipleship structures rather than boards and committees to make decisions and do ministries. We will seek to minimize the number of our policy makers and maximize the number of persons doing ministries.

22.  The Elders shall be charged with the oversight of the disciplemaking process by commissioning the Ministry community where the disciplemaking leaders can be trained and equipped for ministry, writing policy, and appointing task forces. The congregation shall empower and enable the Elders to lead the church toward becoming a Disciple-Making Church

Our Philosophy of Methods and Principles to Help Us Best Make Disciples
22.  We will, at all times, have an intentional strategy to accomplish our purpose.

23.  Disciplemaking requires intentionally. (The right things don’t happen by accident)

24.  We will primarily make disciples as a team, as a church, but not just as a collection of independent individuals.

25.  We are committed to the principle of multiplication of ourselves by evangelizing, discipling. equipping, and, and leadership training.

26.  We are committed to the expansion of ministries by delegating ministry opportunities to those who are faithful, available, and teachable (2 Timothy 2:2).

27.  We will multiply ourselves and train others using the method of apprenticeship.

28.  The spiritual maturity of the Leadership is a key in the health and growth of the church. Most people will not rise beyone the spiritual maturity and discipline of their leaders. (ex. If the leaders don't witness then the people will not). For this reason we believe that accountability within the Ministry community is essential for a disciplemaking church.

29.  Disciplemaking is not a program that meets at a certain times but a process that includes everything we do

30.  Loving accountability is an indispensable method in making disciples.

31.  Disciplemaking is accomplished through relationships. People are not looking for a friendly church they are looking for friends.

32.  We believe personal evangelism is most effective outside the church building as a way of life.

33.  Evangelism / witnessing is the starting point and indispensable catalyst to all disciplemaking. (Failure to evangelize or witness is sin, and blocks our fellowship with God.)

34.  Successful wintessing is simply taking the initiative to share the Gosple in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. Failure in witnessing is simply failing to witness. The only way to fail in evangelism is to fail to evangelize.

35.  Sound Expositional preaching and Biblical theology are the fountainhead of growth and health in the church. We believe that a commitment to hear God's Word preached expositionally shapes the agenda of the church by God's agenda in Scripture.

36.  A basic evidence of true Christian growth as a disciple of Jesus Christ is a life of increasing holiness, rooted in Chritian self-denial.

37.  We believe that many of the church’s most important identity and ministries take place during the week, when the church is decentralized (or scattered). and when each member of the congregation is responsible for and participating in ministry.

38.  Each member is responsible to make disciples even though our lives are crowded with other priorities.

39.  Enhanse - We believe that the ministries of the church (what we are teaching and modeling) of the church should support the family and family life and not hinder it.

40.  We believe what a church measures (like worship attendance) drives the behavior of the church. We do not intend to count numbers for number's sake but to be careful to measure and count in order to further motivate people to a greater committement to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Traditional church statistics may not be the best indication of the health of the church.

41.  We believe in a sovereign God that has invited us to share in His work in the world through prayer. We desire to be a praying people.

42.  The emphasis of ministry is placed on the product (disciples) rather than the program(s) of the church.

43.  Facilities and resources are only important as they serve to enhance the mission of making disciples. God will provide for every genuine need. We will budget for growth.

44.  Extend - We will be a church that not only reproduces disciples but develops new disciplemaking churches in San Antonio and beyond.

45.  Our responsibility to missions starts in our community and extends to the ends of the earth.

46.  Our organizational structure and leadership styles will flex and change as we move through different phases of our church’s life-cycle.