Ministries

ACF ministry includes five simple components:

1. Quality Music in Our Worship Services:

Music is an important part in the ministry of any church. It sets the tone for public worship and prepares the heart for the preaching of the God’s Word. We believe that music, to be effective, must be of a high standard and appeal to the majority of the church. We also recognize that music can be a contentious issue and must be handled with wisdom. It is our intention to play and sing music that has the widest appeal, while ranging from favourite hymns sung in a contemporary fashion to modern worship songs.

2. Balanced Teaching of the Scriptures:

Even as Timothy was encouraged by the Apostle Paul to “rightly divide the Word of Truth”, so too must we teach the Scriptures in a balanced, intelligent fashion, avoiding any extremes. We seek to emulate such excellent teachers as Dr. David Jeremiah, Chuck Swindoll, Dr. Tom Cowan, Dr. Adrian Rogers, and Dr. Roy Bell. We believe there is a hunger for good Bible teaching and that people will respond when they are well fed, both on Sunday mornings and during the week at our Home Fellowships.

3. Ministry to Our People through Teaching, Prayer, and Practical Means:

To minister to people is to help them in their walk with God. This will sometimes include helping to meet their practical needs, such as offering meals during times of sickness, helping out on a moving day, or aiding someone in finding employment. Other times it may mean offering prayer support or an encouraging word. We believe in the power of prayer and will incorporate it during our worship services by praying for healing, wisdom, or guidance, and by offering up words of praise. Ministering to our people also means discipling them to become spiritually mature, to where they are excited about reaching out and discipling others.

4. Outreach to the Community through Service:

If evangelism is the purpose of the church, then our desire is to effectively reach out to the community through relevant ways and means. Our vision is to form different evangelism teams, each with a distinct purpose: One will go out into the streets and witness; a second will organize and implement the Alpha course; a third will seek out families in times of need; another might focus on children’s outreach. These are examples, but we recognize that community needs may change from time to time and it is necessary to be relevant in our efforts to reach out to the community for Christ.

5. Ministry through Prayer:

We have been strongly encouraged to establish prayer as a cornerstone of our church. Paul Billheimer, in his book, “Destined for the Throne”, speaks of prayer as “that which God uses to accomplish His purposes on this Earth. Through prayer, God acts, without prayer, he waits until the church begins to pray.” We recognize it is the responsibility of each church leader to learn to pray as God has called him, because no church can rise above the level of its leadership.

Having been challenged by God and having seen and heard about some very successful models of churches that take seriously the call to intercessory prayer, we desire our church to make intercessory prayer a natural part of all we do. Unless we pray, we will be less than effective evangelists. Billy Graham has often said, “The first three rules of evangelism are, …pray, pray, pray!