Our Mission

The mission of Cradock Baptist Church is to glorify God by making disciples who have a vital connection with God and with other people.

Our Definition of a Disciple

A disciple is a believer who is in a process of becoming more like Jesus Christ throughout one’s lifetime through practicing spiritual habits of prayer, Bible study, fellowship, evangelism, and service to others. (For further development of this, click here.)

The Roles of Leadership

The role of our Pastor is to provide for the welfare and oversight of the church by communicating vision, giving direction, training disciples, spending priority time in prayer and the ministry of preaching and teaching the Word, and being a model in the discipleship process.

The role of our Deacons is to support and assist the Pastor in providing spiritual leadership for the ministry of our church, and to be models in the discipleship process.

All key leaders (Pastoral staff members, Sunday School teachers, ministry and group leaders) will actively participate in the ministry of our church and be growing disciples committed to the church’s philosophy of ministry, doctrinal statement, and attend leadership training when offered.

All key leadership will be selected through an intentional process of prayer and discernment on the basis of their character, faithfulness, and spiritual giftedness, as demonstrated over time.

The Purpose of Church Ministries

Our church gathers in large groups primarily for the purpose of worship, inspiration, and celebration, and in Sunday School and ministry and small groups for Bible study, fellowship and personal spiritual growth.

Our worship will be Christ-centered, relevant in expression, and celebrative in spirit. We will make sure what we do will make the outsider feel comfortable and welcome, and the committed believer challenged and encouraged.

Our Sunday School will be a key outreach and assimilation point for the church, as well as a place for systematic Bible teaching and formation of a breadth of relationships through fellowship.

Our small groups exist primarily for teaching, equipping, pastoral care, and personal spiritual growth through development of depth of relationships.

We will seek to establish and maintain a healthy balance of groups to provide the proper structure for connecting with persons at each stage of spiritual growth.

Our evangelism will seek to incorporate both spontaneous and strategic ways of doing evangelism. The Gospel will never change, but our methods will flex and change according to the needs of the people we are trying to reach. Thus, many methods may be used at any one time.

The primary emphasis of all of our ministry programs is to make disciples, and we will evaluate the effectiveness of all ministry structures by whether they are producing changed lives.

Our disciple making structures include our Sunday School, age-group ministries, support groups and small groups.

All of our ministries will be biblically sound, culturally relevant, and supported by a strong base of prayer.

All that we do as a church and as individual believers is aimed at bringing glory to God.

This Philosophy of Ministry will be implemented with grace during the first twelve months, and will take full effect on October 31, 2008.

Our Philosophy of Ministry will be as binding as our By-Laws, and can be amended in the same manner as our By-Laws.