VISION STATEMENT
Shining the light of Christ in worship and life — sharing the amazing gospel of Jesus.
Hebrews 12:2
SOME HISTORY
For over a century (120 years), this gathering of Christians met together under the building name of Bolton Gospel Hall. More recently, a rigorous process of seeking out the Scriptures, was undertaken to be named according to both our identity as people and our gathering centre who is Jesus, with a Biblical term that is reflective of the Lord and believers — who are of necessity identified with Christ and the body of Christ — rather than any particular building name nor organization of church names.
In addition to the primary objective of clarifying our identity with Christ, there was a desire to be more approachable and relevant to those who are seeking Christ, as seen by the apostle Paul who made himself variously approachable to the communities he reached out to (1 Cor. 9:20) and in the spirit of togetherness of the early church who had all things in common (Acts 2:44).
A NEW CHAPTER — CLARIFYING OUR IDENTITY
This autonomous local church began months of soul-searching consultations with the Word of God (the Bible), which defines a local church as a local gathering of people (1 Cor. 3:9) who are representing, and named after the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:15), not any other group or organizational name. In the Bible, the “church” always refers to people — A) all people who follow Christ globally regardless of locale (Acts 5:11, Acts 20:28, Heb. 12:23, Eph. 1:22, Eph. 3:6,10, Eph. 5:23-27, Col. 1:18) and B) also referring to local gatherings of Christ-followers (Acts 11:22, 1 Cor. 1:2, 1 Thes. 1:1, Rev. 1:4).
In the Bible, the book of Revelations mentions the “lampstand” as something that God himself upholds as a symbol of the local church’s expression of Christ’s perfect love shining through imperfect human hearts. As Jesus is the light (John 8:12, 1 John 1:5), so are the believers a light in each community (Matthew 5:14-16). The Christians in Lampstand Bolton Christian Church, are regular folks who nonetheless have a passion to shine brightly the light of Jesus in love (Luke 8:16), and in unity with all the Lord’s people everywhere, as expressed in God’s Word “with all the saints” (Ephesians 3:18).
The new name, ‘Lampstand Bolton Christian Church,’ was recently launched to more accurately reflect identification with Christ who is the Light of the World, and according to the Biblical pattern of addressing local Christians in the early church (IE: letters in the Bible were written to the church of God which is at Corinth, or to those of the church of the Thessalonians, for example etc.)
Jesus said, “I am come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me, does not live in darkness.”
John 12:46
BRAND VALUES
With the above in mind, a few brand values were developed to help define some of the underlying principles that would influence the hand-lettered look of the new Lampstand branding. The brand values are not comprehensive descriptors, but rather a sampling of evocative words to communicate some key elements of the brand essence:
Love.
Relevance.
Joy.
Transparency.
Lampstand is a place of encouragement, and safety for anyone in the communities of Bolton and surrounding areas to learn about, follow and rejoice in Jesus, while we also celebrate and do life together. The church’s vision statement, is based on Hebrews 12:2, and reads:
Shining the light of Christ in worship and life — sharing the amazing Gospel of Jesus.