Our Values

Why is the gospel first on our list? Because the gospel is of first importance. When Jesus began his public ministry, he proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) The necessity of repenting of sins and believing the gospel was central to the message and ministry of Jesus. So it is with us. The apostle Paul wrote, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

We never want to outgrow the wonder of God’s rescuing grace in the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The way to grow as Christians is not to move beyond the gospel but to move deeper into it. And what is this gospel? It is the thrilling news of what God has accomplished—through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son—to redeem and restore a lost world to himself. And the most amazing part is that anyone can get in on this. The gospel is the pulsing center of our life as a church, and its transforming power is the basis of who we are and everything we do.

There is a place for “topical” sermons, but the preaching at Restoration Road will primarily be “expository.” This ancient approach seeks to expose God’s people to God’s Word, one passage at a time. We normally do this by preaching through books of the bible, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Our commitment to expository sermons is more than a preference—it is a conviction. Why? Because we are convinced that it is the words of God —not the ideas of man —that truly transform lives. We don’t want to get in the way of God’s voice.

Whether they realize it or not, every human needs to hear the full range of what God has to say—from Genesis to Revelation, each part understood in context and applied to the heart. God’s Word brings spiritual life and growth to God’s people. The apostles felt constrained to preach “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and so do we.

The New Testament uses several metaphors that describe Christians as members. We are referred to as members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19), members of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:27, Romans 12:5), and members of one another (Ephesians 4:25, Romans 12:5).

In other words, church membership is a living and breathing web of relationships. It’s an eagerness to say, “I am my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper—and they are mine.” It’s a commitment to intentionally serve and help others and to take responsibility for their well-being. It’s a willingness to submit to the oversight of church leaders and to the care and accountability of fellow members. Christ calls us to love one another, and love thrives in the context of this committed relationship.

Following Jesus is not a solo endeavor; it is a community effort. At Restoration Road, we don’t want our growth in Christ to be haphazard and thin; instead, we want it to be deliberate and deep. We want our members to flourish in their knowledge of Scripture and theology so that the roots of their faith grow deep and strong. We cannot manufacture this through programs. Only God’s Word, reverberating through the life of the covenant community, can bring forth the growth we desire.

Our discipleship infrastructure is designed to facilitate such growth and entails four priorities for each member: (1) corporate worship; (2) corporate prayer; (3) small groups; and (4) other opportunities, including men’s and women’s bible studies, events and retreats, one-on-one discipling relationships, etc.

Worship isn’t just the warm sensation one gets from music on a Sunday morning—it’s meant to characterize every aspect of our lives. Moreover, we are not left to figure out how to worship God on our own. Rather, he has revealed to us in his Word how we are to worship him. We aim to worship King Jesus not only as we gather on Sundays but as we scatter throughout the week according to his Word.

What does this mean for our musical style? It will be neither wholly “traditional” nor solely “contemporary,” but a blend featuring time-tested hymns and modern praise songs. We are committed to congregational singing, where the primary instrument is the church’s collective voice. The whole church, then, is the worship team. We have musicians, but their role is more to accompany than to perform. This style is not rooted in denominational tradition or mere preference; it’s simply our attempt to obey the command to sing upward to God and outward to one another (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).

So, we will prioritize songs that are biblically true, theologically rich, musically beautiful, and “congregation-singable.” No matter what song we’re singing—whether it was penned a millennium ago or a year ago, whether it gives us “all the feels” or not—we want to worship passionately, singing with gusto since Christ’s tomb really is empty.

Praying together is an important part of our family life. We believe the Lord works in us and through us in wonderful and powerful ways as we depend on him through prayer. We never want to overestimate what we can do while underestimating what the Lord does through the prayers of his saints. We pray regularly for the needs and spiritual growth of our church, the encouragement and effectiveness of our ministry partners, and for the advance of the gospel in our community and around the world.  We fill our gatherings with prayers shaped by God’s Word, and we set aside the first Sunday evening of each month for a special prayer service.

We encourage and equip every member to engage in evangelism, developing gospel-oriented relationships and seizing opportunities to proclaim the good news to those around us. We evangelize not with confidence in ourselves but with confidence in God and his power at work through the gospel (Romans 1:16). While we may have some evangelistic programs in and through the church, we emphasize the equipping and personal responsibility of our members to reach the lost.

We pray Restoration Road will be a launching pad for the gospel—both to our neighborhoods and the nations. We believe that the church’s central mission is found in Jesus’s “Great Commission”: to make disciples among the nations. We serve a missionary God who is gathering people from every tribe, tongue, and nation for his glory. Our strategy is to support strategic gospel workers with finances, prayers, encouragement, and care. Our hope is that many will be established in our midst to then go out from our body to proclaim the gospel and help establish other healthy churches—heavenly outposts on earthly soil.

Scripture teaches that both men and women bear God’s image and are essential and indispensable to the mission of the church. The uniquely gender-specific design and calling God has given to men and women are part of the goodness of creation and display the glory of God. In the church, God restricts the office and function of elder/pastor to qualified men (1 Tim. 2:12). This is why our elders and the formal, public teaching ministries of the church are led or overseen by elder-qualified men. 

We endeavor to be a church that rejoices in God’s good design for men and women and where men and women gladly embrace the unique and different roles that God has created them to fulfill in his infinitely wise, glorious, and beautiful design.

Restoration Road may disappoint if you are looking for a church with state-of-the-art production and a long menu of customized programs. While we deeply value excellence, we will focus our efforts toward fostering a culture of evangelism, discipling, hospitality, and encouragement in our congregation—rather than an array of programs.

Church programs can be helpful, and we will benefit from some, but we believe they must be downstream from our primary priorities. We don’t want our church to become a spiritual drive-thru, a mere purveyor of religious goods and services. Nor do we want to endlessly subdivide the congregation along demographic lines. Our collective central identity is the whole gathering and not the small groupings. Because spiritual growth cannot be manufactured, we will orient congregational life around the ordinary means of grace, emphasizing personal initiative and life-on-life relationships—with corporate worship as both the centerpiece and springboard for all we are and do.