The phrase God gave Jackson and I about the purpose of Divulge Ministries was that we are to encourage “Presence-centered, Gospel-focused, Kingdom-minded” expressions of faith in our city. We both wrote this three-part phrase down separately in our alone times with Jesus, not knowing for a couple days that the other person was moved to use the exact same terminology to describe our vision. We knew we were in sync with each other when we realized we both heard the Holy Spirit whisper the same thing to our hearts.
Recently I was talking to a seminarian friend who is preparing for a career in professional ministry. He mentioned that the Gospel is often seen as having a three-fold nature to it. The Gospel opens the way for us to enter into a relationship, declares to us our new identity, and then launches us onward with a sense of mission. A common acronym for this is R.I.M.
After thinking about it, I couldn’t help but realize there is a correlation between these three aspects of the Gospel and Divulge’s core vision. Let me explain;
We believe the Church Jesus dreamed of is Presence-centered because the Gospel is all about relationship. In other words, Jesus saved us because He want us to get to know Him and enjoy our union with Him. As 2 Corinthians 5:19 says, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” Through the Cross we have been brought into fellowship with the Trinity, made into an embodied “house of prayer.” We are confident in His mercy and access His manifest Presence freely. Encountering Him in a dynamic, experiential manner is central to all of our corporate and individual worship.
There is also a strong identity component to our vision because we believe that the message we carry at its heart is that believers now are new-creation saints in Christ. In Christ’s death, we died once and for all time to our old sinful identities. In His resurrection, we arose into abundant life. We are completely new — beloved, forgiven, cleaned, set apart, full of the Spirit, living from hearts made righteous, entrusted with divine authority… We are not “becoming good people” while we self-righteously try to fix ourselves. We have been effectively transformed by God’s work on our behalf, and are evermore learning to see ourselves the way our Father does. This is the Gospel of Grace and it is something we feel just can’t be overemphasized.
Lastly, we seek to be Kingdom-minded because we believe Christ’s message to be massive in its scope. It isn’t just about revival or reformation in the Church world. It isn’t just about our personal relationship with God or our individual identities. It’s about all things being made new. Our Leader has ascended to the highest throne in the Universe, and we believe Revelation 11:15 that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” Everything has been fundamentally thrown upside down, and the “yeast” of Jesus’ benevolent authority is now increasingly working to influence and serve the whole of society into its destiny (referring to Matthew 13:33). We want to be engaged in moving His large-scale mission forward.
This is just a brief introduction to these significant Gospel themes, but I hope you can see a bit of why we are so passionate about letting them define our ministry’s vision. In the future, we will no doubt elaborate much more on the meaning and significance of them. In the meantime, we greatly look forward to joining with you through our developing media platforms and events as we seek to unify around, celebrate and strengthen the expression of these Gospel themes throughout our region.
For His glory and fame,
— Destin