We follow Jesus
into hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8
"Good Things Grow Here"
THE GOOD NEWS
The Bible tells a compelling story of our human origin. It begins in a Garden designed to be full of goodness. However, evil soon introduces a counteroffer. What follows is shame, blame, envy, and murderous hatred. The Creator who made the world intervenes, offering hope and promising to make everything good again. That promise and the others God made come rushing together in the Person of Jesus. He is the long-awaited One who comes to rescue and heal.
At first, people are shocked by this scandalous Messiah. He’s not what they expect. When He finally ends up on a Roman Cross, absorbing the world’s shame, blame, envy, and murderous hatred like a broken black hole, most abandon Him.
They couldn’t see how he was also pouring out hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing until they gazed into an empty tomb. They could scarcely believe it when Jesus presented Himself alive to them. But the more they walked, talked, ate, and cried with Him, the more they trusted.
The closer they followed, the more they believed.
Jesus gave them His Spirit, and they started doing what He did: They told others about Jesus, His teaching, and the Resurrection. They prayed, worshipped, and healed others. Finally, they wrote down His story, inviting more and more people into a new reality that Jesus called “My Kingdom.”
IS IT FOR ME?
This would simply be a good story if it weren’t also our story.
We are designed to be like that first beautiful garden: fresh, unspoiled, and full of growing goodness. Sadly, evil persists. We learn that the world, for all its beauty, is broken. We learn another awful truth, too. We harbor this same brokenness even before it is thrust upon us.
Our rescue is the same as that of those first Jesus followers, and our healing is like theirs. First, we behold Jesus. We see who He is and what He does. We start to belong in a community that trusts and follows Him as Lord. Sooner or later, this trust becomes ours. His Spirit makes us more alive than ever. We start to become who we were always meant to be. Finally, we move beyond our comfort and self-concern to share this new life with others. This is the life of a disciple, a follower of Jesus.
As we follow Him, the good things he restores — hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing — begin to grow in the garden of our lives. And then, all that Jesus provides is ours to share.
Learn more about our Foursquare beliefs and find a downloadable copy of our Statement of Faith here.
B4Church is Part of the Foursquare (ICFG) Family.
Jesus' Vision for His People
We are committed to helping people increasingly live and love like Jesus. Throughout this transformation, their lives will express some common qualities. Let’s call them the marks of Christ-like maturity: hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing.
Our hope is in Jesus, our savior.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. In his name the nations will put their hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. — Matthew 12:21; Romans 15:13 and 5:5
Jesus described His followers as light in dark places. It’s a marvelous description of the influence they exercise in this world. They live within the Gospel’s hope and illuminate it for others. Why is this important? Because so few people experience lives consistently filled with an abiding sense of hope. Jesus Followers who display a patient, buoyant anticipation of God’s Kingdom goodness born of His love offer a compelling invitation to consider the hope Jesus provides.
Consequently, we share the news that our loving God has more for us, and it is good! We’re also realistic about how we only enjoy that goodness in part for now. Why? Because our hope lives in tension with suffering. Even so, we remain certain that all will be made well when God renews everything and establishes His Kingdom in its fullness. Therefore, we serve as ambassadors of hopeful reconciliation.
We are made whole by Jesus, our healer.
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” — Matthew 9:12
Jesus came to restore the sick, the broken, and the hurting, which is all of us. We follow Him into that practice. However, healing is not for the faint of heart because it requires us to break things, like the evils of demonic oppression and suffering. So, we pray for and minister to others because these kinds of afflictions should be broken. In other cases, healing comes when God mends things that are already broken, like hearts, minds, and bodies.
When we meet others in their sacred wounded spaces, intense physical, emotional, and spiritual dynamics can come into play. So, we must remain grounded, trusting in God’s love for us and believing He reconciles all things with His good and perfect will. Forgiveness is often the gateway into these spaces.
Forgiveness is repeatedly coupled with healing in Jesus’ ministry. Those who need healing sometimes must let go of an offense and embrace a willingness to extend forgiveness. Other times, they need to forgive themselves to experience God’s grace and mercy to its fullest. Therefore, we serve to break what needs to be broken and mend the shattered parts of troubled lives as God’s Spirit leads.
We are made free in Jesus, who gives us His liberating Spirit.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
Through His death and resurrection, Jesus defeated the “powers and authorities” that sought to enslave humankind. His victory was decisive and public, available for all to see and embrace.
We access Christ’s victory through what the Bible calls faith. This is a settled trust in the powerful love of God displayed on the Cross. His gracious love liberates us and breaks the chains binding us to unworthy gods, these so-called powers and authorities.
And so, we serve as a community of liberated liberators, a spiritual insurgency, if you will. As such, we follow Jesus’ practice, who taught that spiritual rhythms like prayer and fasting are necessary expressions of belief if we’re to shepherd people into freedom as He did. The unworthy, enslaving “gods” do not give way easily. However, we need not fear when encountering troubled souls enslaved by evil. Those who trust in Jesus’ victory are more than qualified to minister deliverance and freedom.
We thrive when we follow Jesus, King of the Garden City.
Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Christ himself gave…, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So, I say walk by the Spirit— Luke 2:52; Ephesians 4:11-13, Galatians 5:16
Jesus grew up. He flourished within the secure love of His Father as He reached maturity, full of delight, purpose, and power as God’s King. He flourished as He walked with the Spirit. We were created to do as He did. Disciples were meant to be “perfected.” Listen to The Message translation of Matthew 5:48 on maturing:
“In a word, what I’m saying is, ‘Grow up.’ You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Did you catch that? “Perfect” means Spirit-filled disciples who live God-discovering lives, full of generosity and grace. We live with a sense of abundance, with nothing missing, broken, or bound as we grow and mature. We are overflowing, life-giving vessels. We are mirrors reflecting God’s glorious love with delight and purpose, just as He intended — together in the remade Garden + City (Revelation 22).
At B4, we don’t keep this to ourselves. We share it all in scandalous and intoxicating ways, as Jesus did, inviting others to flourish as they live ever more fully with the King in His Kingdom.