The Chicago Church of Christ is a city-wide, cross-cultural congregation of about 2,000 members meeting in seven different locations throughout the Chicagoland area. Our group, which meets at Bryan Middle School in Elmhurst on most Sundays, is called the Central Region, and our membership is scattered through the towns of western Chicago and the near-west suburbs, from O'Hare on the north to Midway on the south, from the Des Plaines River on the East to I-355 on the West. God has blessed us with a unified group of all ages, economics and races focused on loving Him.

Recently, our entire region did a Bible Search to discover afresh all of God's purposes for His church. Every member studied a number of chapters to answer the question, "What does God intend for His church to be and to do?" All of their important research resulted in five significant purposes. They describe what we believe God desires for His people.

1. To Exalt God and His Son.
2. To Envelope People in a Loving Family
3. To Educate each member to maturity in Christ
4. To Empower each member for a personal ministry
5. To Evangelize our area of Chicago and Beyond

First, in the book of Ephesians, one of Paul's great treatises on the church, he says this:

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. (Eph 1:11-12, NIV)

The phrase, ‘that we might BE for the praise of His glory' defines one of our key purposes as a group of disciples: to bring him praise, both in our congregational gatherings and in our individual times of worship. We encourage all of our members to practice the daily disciplines of praise, prayer, and Bible study, and we are convinced that only as we walk daily with the Lord can we live out a lifestyle of committed believers.

Second, just before his atoning death for our sins, Jesus told the eleven faithful these important words:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)

We are each committed to being disciples of Jesus, who loved us so much that he died for us. And we are committed to imitating that love. In order to help our members connect with a family, we organize the congregation in small groups that we call House Churches (Romans 16:5). These groups enable us, no matter how large the congregation may become, to remain a close-knit family of people committed to the ‘One Another Way' written of so often in the epistles. It is in this way that we strive to obey Jesus' inspiring and challenging command to love as he did. As Paul prayed,

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:17-18)

Third, we strive to ‘educate every member to maturity in Christ.' We believe that Christianity is participant sport, not a spectator sport; we enjoy the fullness of God's life as we learn, grow and allow the word of God to change us more and more into a people who by our lives bring honor to Christ. To this end we have ministers, teachers and house church leaders, who, in Sunday services, special classes, and house churches strive to communicate effectively the truths of the scriptures.

Fourth, we desire to empower every member for a personal ministry, helping them to uncover and develop their personal spiritual gifts so that they can accurately use those gifts as a blessing to others in both church and community. We recently conducted our first "Spiritual Gifts Workshop" to further this process. We will follow up this process with a "Spiritual Gifts Fair' to be conducted after our worship service on Sunday, March 4^th.

Fifth, we desire, through all of our ministries, through word of mouth and other means, to impact our community with the saving message of salvation. All of our members have been taught a series of Bible Studies so that they can help their friends to more deeply understand God's working throughout history, and especially through the life and death of Jesus.

We know that we are imperfect and fragile, but energized by the grace of God and the love of Christ, this is who we are striving to be as a Church. We invite you to join with us in our quest to imitate our savior and fulfill his purposes for the church that he established in the first century and empowers to this day.