Psalm 1; Deut 6

When we say we have a healthy obsession with the Bible, we mean that at Harvest we seek to instill within ourselves a deep and abiding love for God’s word. We want Scripture to be the ongoing object of our affections and attention. We believe God’s word is always right, always relevant, always effective, always enough, and we put Scripture at the center of everything we do. Moreover, when we come to God’s word, we want to subject our thought to the Scriptures rather than subjecting the Scriptures to our thought, and so we generally preach passage by passage through books of the Bible.

Luke 10:2; Eph 6:18; James 5:13-16

Prayer is a sacred privilege we possess as God’s children, and at Harvest we don’t ever want to sacrifice prayer on the altar of busy-ness and activity. Therefore, we are intentional to schedule times of prayer throughout the week, and we seek to create a church culture of dependence upon God, where prayer is seen as a necessity in the life of our community.

Prov 18:24; Col 3:12-14; 1 Pet 4:7-11

We want every attender at Harvest to be a part of our community groups. At these groups, we meet weekly to help each other become more like Jesus by practicing the spiritual discipline of Christian friendship. We have a lot of fun together, and we build transparent, loving relationships that go past small talk into deep conversations about what God is doing in our lives. At a typical group meeting, we’ll spend some time discussing how we can apply God’s word from the most recent sermon to our lives, we’ll pray together, and we’ll spend some time doing something to deepen our connection with each other.

Col 1:27-29; Eph 4:14-16; Heb 10:19-25

God loves us just as we are. He also loves us too much to leave us that way. The Lord desires to see us grow toward maturity in Christ, and he wants us to help one another move toward that goal by building each other up in truth and love. At Harvest, we expect big things from a big God, and we try to help one another live with fearless faith. We’re open and honest about what we don’t know and where we can grow, and we go to uncomfortable places to help each other become more like Jesus.

Luke 15; Matt 20:1-16; 1 Cor 3:1-9

We live in an age of comparison. Our social media and news feeds are constantly presenting us with temptations to envy, to complain, and to be discontent. In this climate of comparison, we resolve to be joyful, prayerful, thankful people no matter what (1 Thes 5:16-18). God has given us everything we need for life and godliness in Christ (2 Pet 1:3), and we refuse to let competition and comparison distract us.

2 Tim 2:2

Our church is uniquely positioned to raise up young leaders in every walk of life. As a church in a college town, we see incredible potential to equip generations of godly men and women to go out and serve as leaders in churches, businesses, schools, and communities across the country and around the world. We strategically prioritize the development of leaders, and we seek to structure our ministries in such a way that young leaders can gain valuable experience and mentoring as they participate in the life of our church.

Eph 4:11-16

We believe that church is not a spectator sport, and we don’t want anyone sitting on the sidelines. Every one of us has a part to play in God’s plan for our church. We aren’t here to consume. We’re here to serve each other and the world, and we trust the words of Jesus, that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Matt 6:21-27; Mark 10:35-45

What we choose to honor reflects what we value. Our world typically gives honor based on ability or accomplishment: we honor comedians who are exceptionally funny, business leaders who are exceptionally innovative, athletes who are exceptionally competitive, musicians who are exceptionally skilled. These recipients of honor may sometimes be men and women of integrity, but generally it is not the quality of one’s character that leads to honor in our world. We believe God sees things differently. In the church, we certainly admire the gifts that God gives each of us for fruitful service. But when we think about what we celebrate and what we honor as a community – what we really value the most as a church – godliness, character, and humble service comes before giftedness or charisma or social status. At Harvest we make a big deal out of faithful obedience to God, and we want to elevate as role models and leaders those who set excellent examples of Christlikeness for us.