Vision

To plant a gospel-centered, missional, church planting movement that brings redemption, reconciliation and revival through Jesus Christ to the Birmingham area. 

Mission

To advance the Gospel of Jesus by pursuing people in Community and on Mission.

Core Values

Gospel-Centrality

The Gospel is not simply conversion.  It is salvation unto men from eternity past to eternity future.  It is the power of God to purpose, save, and sanctify us.  Everything is about the Gospel because God IS the Gospel (John Piper).  The entire life of the church is about presenting, preaching and advancing the Gospel as the hope for sinners.  It’s not about how good we can be but about who Jesus is and what He has done. 

Missional Living

Being missional is living like a missionary.  It’s living intentional lives in a community before others in service, love, and passion.  It’s truly putting “love your neighbor” into practice.  This type of life will create opportunities to share the Gospel.  “Every believer is a missionary” (Ed Stetzer).  Every believer is called to wrap his or her life around God’s mission with others in community. 

Church Planting

We want to see a gospel-centered church planted in every zip code in Birmingham.  We want to share the Gospel, make disciples, get people on mission with us, train leaders and elders, raise up church planters and send people out to plant churches in other places.  As we multiply missional communities and groups begin to form in areas, we want to start churches in those areas.  It’s not about one big church gathering in one place.  It’s about many churches incarnating in communities to pursue people with the Gospel.

Redemption

Ultimately, we want to see people come to faith in Jesus.  We pray that God uses Ardent to show how Jesus has redeemed His people through the Cross and how His resurrection gives us new hope.  Ardent Church is about the Great Commission. We want to advance the Gospel to every man, woman and child in Birmingham and beyond.

Reconciliation

Birmingham has several barriers and divisions.  These range from racial to socioeconomic to class to neighborhood to family divisions. What would it look like to see the Gospel repair and reconcile the brokenness in our city?  What a beautiful picture of Heaven to see a multiethnic, multigenerational, multi-community church movement show the reconciliation the Gospel brings!

Revival

Birmingham has seen a steady decline in church attendance, number of Christians, and gospel-centrality but has seen an increase in crime, hate, corruption, and abuse.  We pray for revival to break loose in the hearts of believers to pray and engage our communities.  We aren’t praying for Christendom to be reestablished but want to see the Gospel deeply penetrate darkness and turn the hearts of the people to God in worship!

For more information about our vision for Birmingham check out our Planting Prospectus.