TLC Church   statement of purpose

1)   To uphold the supremacy of the Word of God in matters of life and faith in a non-legalistic/non-antinomian context; i.e., grace will be applied in love, but grace will not be used as license to continue to live a sinful life. Preaching, teaching, proclaiming, and living the Word of God is our main emphasis (Eph. 4:11). Scripture alone validates or invalidates what man does or says in the name of the Lord. No man, no movement, no experience, no word (of man) is greater than God’s Word. To stray from God’s Word, add to God’s Word, or take away from God’s Word is the road to disorder and disaster. The further one strays from the Word, the greater the confusion. All values, intents, directions, desires, ministries, visions, and goals will be held up to the light of the Word of God, sound doctrine, God’s grace, and simple reason (Prov. 30:5,6; Rev. 22:18,19). Truth and love in the power of the Holy Spirit will earmark TLC Ministries. Truth and love are the keys to wholesome Christian life and service. One without the other causes imbalance. Balance will be sought in all matters. Balance is imperative whether one seeks to crawl, stand, walk, or run. Without balance one cannot even sit up on their own. 

2)   To equip God’s people to do His work. Helping and ministering to individuals in their everyday lives. Teaching individual Christians to maintain the sanctity of their individuality, while understanding that their personal life is an important-integral-fitted part of the larger whole, i.e., the Body of Christ. Everyone is viewed as an integral part of the larger whole, without ever losing their distinction as individuals. Each Christian’s life and talents are important and necessary to God’s work. No Christian is an appendix (i.e., a useless part of) the Body of Christ    I Cor. 12:12-27. 

3)   To build up the Body of Christ, i.e., the church/people. A healthy atmosphere within the church is paramount to the ongoing life of the church. Conditions within the church affect the impact the church will have on those outside the church. No one outside the church is more important than those within the church. Outreach (evangelism, care ministries, etc.) should be a natural extension of what (already) consistently exists in the church. In other words, the same effort, care, and energies used in outreach should be nothing more then taking outside the church walls what consistently and genuinely takes place within the walls. The health inside the church is indicative of the health those outside the church will experience when brought into the church. It is disingenuous to claim to love God and the lost when one does not genuinely love and care for those who already belong to God, those who can be seen and touched in the church. E.g., one does not go out and bring a new born baby into a home that is filled with sickness and expect to raise a healthy child. In a healthy home, nurturing and growth naturally take place because the environment is healthy. I John 2:9-11; 3:14-17, 19; 4:20, 21. 

 4)   To determine to seek unity in faith and knowledge of Christ and the Word without uniformity, but in a diverse unity. Understanding our sameness and commonality, while honoring and respecting our God-given right to our uniqueness. Individuals rightly fitted, learning to do their own special part, assisting the greater whole to grow in health and love. We are made wonderfully complex by God. Within our similarities, we maintain our uniqueness Psalm 139:14; I Corinthians 12:12-31; II Corinthians 10:12-18.

 5)   To endure all things for the sake of Christ Jesus within us. To view sundry trials with a purpose, not as an enemy, but as an agent to purify and prove our faith, ultimately designed to bring about maturity/completion/development of our individual lives and corporate calling Ephesians 2:10; Romans 5:3,4; James 1:3,4; I Peter 1:6,7. 

6)   To construct our beliefs and lives upon the solid unchanging foundation of the Word of God, not upon changing visions, dreams, and directions of men. Although these can be acceptable and helpful if proved accurate after testing, they should not form the basis of our beliefs or our direction as described in Scripture. All TLC Ministries will emanate from the central principle expressed in John 12:32 – “And when I am lifted up on the cross, I will draw everyone to myself.” Jesus Christ will be the core from which all ministry finds its purpose. We believe all Christians have in common the essential doctrines of the infallibility of God’s Word, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, His sinless life, His death for our sins, His bodily resurrection, His ascension to glory, and His personal return to rule the earth. (See Statement of Faith).

TLC Ministries is an Evangelical Pentecostal Ministry. I.e., we believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible, and we encourage their exercise, but always decently and in order, with the main emphasis on the Word of God, which we hold to be our primary-incomparable rule of faith. We believe in the proper Scriptural exercise of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, the greatest gift of all being God’s love. We reject the teaching that uses human prophecy to supersede the Word of God. We reject those groups that claim to have prophets and apostles of equal validity/import with those who wrote the Bible. No prophetic utterance(s) takes precedence over the Word of God. TLC Ministries believes that the Bible is the final and the complete Word of God for His church today, and that no prophecy or teaching can ever supersede it. We reject the over-emphasis of spiritual gifts and experiential signs and wonders to the exclusion of Biblical teaching. II Timothy 4:1-5; I Thess.5:19-22. We share genuine fellowship with anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord in truth and in love.