Toward an MCA Way

January 2, 2020 / By

Toward the MCA Way

Much of the mission and vision of all local churches are revealed in the Bible.  In this way, all local congregations have the same mission and vision.

The MCA Mission is in our Constitution and Bylaws and can be summarized as ministry to God, saints and the world.

MULDOON COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY, INC. recognizes that it’s three-fold mission is:

  • to be a corporate body in which people may worship God (God);
  • to be a channel of God’s purpose to build a body of saints being perfected in the image of His Son; (Saints) and
  • to be an agency of God for evangelizing the world (the world).

Virtually every local congregation, both orthodox and protestant, whole-heartedly embrace the same mission.

Let’s consider some of the uniqueness’s of an MCA Spirituality.

The New Testament Experience is to be our Experience

Well known Presbyterian author, Eugene Peterson brought his Assemblies of God background into his work.

This is the hermeneutic Peterson always puts before us. He’s as well schooled as anybody when it comes to “What does it mean?” And his scholarship has helped more than a few young seminarians like me come up with some important answers to that question. But this question is always in service to the second question, the “How can I live it?” question. In one of his later works, Peterson writes about his Pentecostal upbringing. Although he has a few critiques of the tradition of his youth, he notes that Pentecostals are fiercely devoted to the idea that every last detail of the Book is intended to be lived. And with that simple stroke of his pen, I gained a deeper understanding. How can I live it?  https://jasonbybee.com/2018/11/09/eugene-peterson/

MCA’s favorite Pentecostal theologian, Robert Menzies, tells of a Chinese pastor who said, “When reading the book of Acts, we believe this story is our story.”

  1. We read the book of Acts as a model for our lives.
  2. We understand that the baptism in the Holy Spirit, promised to every believer, should not be confused with regeneration or conversion, rather it is a prophetic empowering.
  3. We link speaking in tongues with the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:17-21 is a model for MCA Spirituality today.

17 “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

We Equip those God Grafts into the MCA Church Network.

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 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.  Ephesians 4:11-12

President Lyndon Johnson said, “We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.”

It is easy to claim to be an equipping ministry without being disciplined to actually require equipping.

  1. We believe in the Spirit’s gifts in the person seated next to us.
  2. We resist the cultural pressure to “hire talent.”  We seek to equip and release MCA constituents who are called by God.
  3. When excellence and equipping conflict, we hope to always choose equipping.

Our Highest Desire is to Experience the Presence and Glory of God

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18:20

We resist a consumer, people-based church design that asks, “What attracts people?” and seek to emphasize, “On whom does God desire to place His glory?”

We seek distinction by experiencing the Lord going with us.

14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”  Exodus 33:14-16