About Our Church
Community Church of East Gloucester is a Christ-centered, Bible-believing church located in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Contemporary worship and expository biblical preaching characterize our Sunday morning worship services, and Small Groups take place all over the North Shore as believers meet together to study, pray, worship, and live missionally as we challenge each other to integrate faith with real life. Our church family is comprised of local Gloucester residents, believers from across Cape Ann and the North Shore, and a healthy representation from the seminary and colleges in the area. Our worship services may be casual, but we take very seriously our calling to live our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.
We invite you to continue to explore the church through this website, but to really find out what God is up to at our church, join us for worship on a Sunday morning. Talk to other attenders. Ask tough questions and expect real answers. Introduce yourself to one of the pastors, elders, leadership team members, or someone sitting near you. Join us for some kind of event: a church work day, a small group, a prayer gathering. Explore this community of faith and “taste and see that the Lord is good.” We are a real church – complete with beauty and brokenness -- on a journey together to experience God together. Come be real with us, and ask the Lord to grow you and shape you into the Christ-follower He is calling you to be.
Our Mission
We understand that the “mission” of the church — every church — comes from God as he has revealed it in the Bible. Accordingly, the mission of our church is aligned directly to this unchanging and universal call to churches everywhere. Community Church exists:
to EXALT God,
to EQUIP His people,
to EXTEND His grace into the world
and to ENJOY His presence.
These “four E’s” define us and guide us as we invest our time, energy and resources into life together as a church. Our mission should never change, because it is a statement of purpose that has been revealed in Scripture. Even as we discuss vision below, it is important to see that who we are, and our overall purpose as a church is not changing at all.
Our Current Vision
In this season, we believe we are being called to recognize that we are a part of the larger city of Gloucester and the many other cities represented as we worship together on Sunday mornings — cities into which God has intentionally placed us. Our current vision is:
Making disciples
for the glory of Christ
and the good of the city.
We are being called outward into the city to love and serve our neighbors in tangible and concrete ways precisely because of the God's love for us in Christ Jesus. We are being called to work for the good of the city.
Yet, even as we head outward into the city, we will not settle for mere voluntarism or activism; we are focused on the glory of Jesus, and understand our calling to share the good news about Jesus in clear, relevant and meaningful ways. We want to celebrate Jesus and bring Him glory. So we work for the glory of Christ.
Bringing these two ideas together, we also recognize that the highest good for our cities is for our neighbors, coworkers, family members and friends to have the opportunity to meet Jesus and to respond to His saving grace, which brings Him great glory. In this way, we work for the glory of Christ and the good of the city.
To accomplish all of this, as a church we need to be making disciples — people who are following Jesus with their whole lives as we participate in our neighborhoods, as we serve in our cities, and as we love and serve those around us. So we invest in equipping the church for worship, for growth, and for sharing the love of Christ in tangible ways by making disciples and learning together how to follow Jesus more and more in all areas of our lives.
Our Distinctives
As Christians, we share a common set of beliefs with millions of believers throughout history and around the world. We also recognize that we have certain distinctives, or core values, that help us maintain our identity and carry out our mission and vision together. Our distinctives are:
Grace | Equipping | Participation | Collaboration | Sending
Grace
We believe grace should govern all relationships. Therefore, we extend grace to one another for the sake of unity, growth, and witness; and we extend grace to unbelievers with the hope that they may experience redeeming grace.
Equipping
We believe it is the duty of the church to make disciples by training Christians for life and ministry. Therefore, we desire to help every believer to identify their gifts, to develop their abilities, and to equip them for effectiveness in ministry.
Participation
We believe that every Christian is called to ministry and uniquely gifted to build up the church and engage the world. Therefore, we invite every believer to cultivate a lifestyle of ministry and provide opportunities for participation in ministry.
Collaboration
We believe that ministry and church leadership should be a group effort. Therefore, we embrace collaboration at every level of ministry and leadership to ensure that multiple perspectives are creatively brought to bear on our ideas, decisions, and ministries.
Sending
We believe that all Christians are sent into the world to serve the spiritual and practical needs of their neighbors for the sake of the gospel. Therefore, we communicate the gospel in relevant ways to people in our community and partner with those who are active in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Aerial photography courtesy of Martin DelVecchio.
Used by permission.