GOD'S PROCLAMATIONS - By JT Tam

I love our mission here at Prism. It might be because I was part of the process to bring about the mission statement to “Revive Believers, Reaching Friends, and Reflect Christ.”  

Back in 2011, I was a seminary student and a Prism Church intern when I attended a three-day staff retreat in Palm Springs.  As a staff team we talked about many different topics related to our church vision and mission.  At that time Chuck already had our church’s general vision locked down, but he asked us to help him flush out different language for our mission statement. We needed a clearer expression of how we were going to get the vision accomplished.

I don’t know if you ever hung-out with Chuck, but he is a bit of a scatter brain.  (I love you, brother).  It just seems like we were going over way too many different topics and nothing really focused on our main objective: how would we describe our church’s Mission.  So we went back and revisited Chuck’s vision.  Our Vision statement:  Prism Church exists to shine the light of God’s grace and love in Jesus Christ to Los Angeles and the world. 

I remembered that we met for hours asking Chuck questions, reading the Bible for direction, and praying for answers. Jesus says we’re to leave the ninety-nine sheep who are safe to go find the one who got lost (Luke 15:3-7). The Lord also commissioned us to make disciples and baptize new believers (Matthew 28:18-29). The Apostle James has also made it clear that religion that God finds acceptable is helping those in need (James 1:27).

Through this process and countless hours of going back-and-forth on the importance of our mission, we knew that bringing back people that used to go to church was very important.  We know that the most successful way of bringing people to church is by inviting friends and family.  Of course, the way we show Christ in our daily walk is extremely important, too.  

With the combination of those three important insights, Chuck had found the three R’s that become our mission: Revive, Reach, and Reflect. After the mission has solidified, it seemed like God gave our church clear direction on how it would shine the light of God’s grace and love in Jesus Christ to Los Angeles and the world.  

Since then I have also taken the mission to heart. My wife and I started a self-defense class called “We-Defend,” which was sponsored by our Church. It was a great way to meet new people and show them the importance of self-protection and make new friends. By God's grace and mercy, one of current members, Josh Bowman, attended the class, became our friend and out of curiosity he asked us why we are doing this.  We gave him our testimony and my wife and I invited him to church and the rest was history. Josh is now a fully devoted follower of Christ.

Our church mission is not easy, nor is difficult. But it takes courage, conviction and an understanding of God’s proclamations (His Word…the Scriptures) to stir our hearts to live out our church mission to Reviving Believers, Reaching Friends, and Reflecting Christ.  

Joshua 1:6 encourages us, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.”