About us

On this page you will find our Vision Statement, our Leadership Structure, What We Believe, and some Frequently Asked Questions about the church

VISION STATEMENT: BUILD. TRAIN. EVANGELISE. REDEEM.

Rock International Church exists to

• build the church*,
• train the saints,
• evangelise the lost, and
• redeem society

by loudly and clearly proclaiming the basics of the Christian faith:

• the holiness and sovereignty of God,
• the deity of Christ (Jesus is God)
• the sinfulness of mankind,
• the authority and sufficiency of the Bible, and
• penal substitutionary atonement (Jesus takes our penalty for sin, swaps his perfect life for our imperfect one, and puts us right with God, by grace alone)

To accomplish this, we trust solely in the power of Scripture, through expository preaching and doctrinal clarity, as the Holy Spirit’s chosen means of revealing the Father to a lost world. 

* the church, not a church. We want to build Christ's universal church, not just our little outpost. So we work across denominational lines and have a strong emphasis on training and equipping people from other churches in order for them to strengthen their church.

LEADERSHIP STRUCTURE

God the Father

 Gives all authority in heaven and earth to his Son 

Our Lord Jesus Christ 

Who is also head of the Church 

And leads through his 

Holy Spirit 

Who speaks powerfully through his Word, the Bible. 

The elders (trainer of ministers) 

Teach the Bible faithfully and prayerfully to 

the ministers (congregation) 

 Who will witness to and serve all people, to the glory of God. 

The leadership team is currently: 

The Head of the church, the “Chairman of the Board” and owner, is the Lord Jesus. We are responsible to Him. He owns the church! He purchased us with his blood.  He rules through his Living Word, the Bible.

Elders, governors/leaders of the church, responsible to Jesus, and therefore having authority to lead, teach, discipline, counsel, etc. within the church: 

• Christian Lia
• Petter Lund 

Ably assisted by deacons, respected mature Christians, set apart to serve, and having authority in the church to enable the work of the elders in teaching the Word: 

• Johanna Lia
• Marit Garratt 
• Martha Lund
  

New elders and deacons will be added in accordance with the requirements in 1 Tim 3 and Titus. Those are the ONLY requirements an elder or deacon must have. If any elders or deacons fail to meet these requirements they will be asked to resign, including the founding elders. We are ALL subject to the Lord Jesus’ oversight!

Note: We honour and respect the position of elder and of elder's wife and uphold the importance of strong marriages dedicated to Jesus. Church leaders' marriages should show the mystery of Christ's self-sacrificial love for the church and the church's loving submission to Jesus. (Ephesians 5:22-33). The elder's first congregation is his family - if he neglects his family he is not fit to lead the church (1 Tim 3:4). Likewise, the elder's wife is responsible first to her husband and family. 
We particularly want to honour and respect the roles of wife and mother as being vitally important and honouring to God, and call on men to honour and respect God, their wives, and their children by taking their roles as husband and father seriously.

WHAT WE BELIEVE
We are doctrinally conservative, and culturally liberal. That means we believe what the Bible says: so we're serious about sin and serious about forgiveness and not serious about things like what clothes you wear to church and if you've done this or that religious ritual. Come as you are!
We believe in a BIG God.
We believe that all people, regardless of creed, colour, religion, sexual identity or gender, are deeply precious, eternal, and of infinite value, created by and given value by God.
We believe that all people are sinners, irrespective of background, religion, family connections, or how that sin is expressed. We all rebel against God, and are all equal in our need for forgiveness, restoration and repentance. 
We believe that children are people too! They need to hear the gospel so that they can repent of their sins and be forgiven. Jesus said not to hinder children coming to him. Therefore we have a special program tailored especially for children every week during the sermon to teach them the Bible and help them understand the Good News about Jesus.

We have adopted the Evangelical Alliance's statement of faith.
We believe in:
1. The one true God who lives eternally in three persons the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2. The love, grace and sovereignty of God in creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming and judging the world.
3. The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.
4. The dignity of all people, made male and female in God's image to love, be holy and care for creation, yet corrupted by sin, which incurs divine wrath and judgement.
5. The incarnation of God's eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ born of the virgin Mary, truly divine and truly human, yet without sin.
6. The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil, so reconciling us with God.
7. The bodily resurrection of Christ, the firstfruit of our resurrection; his ascension to the Father, and his reign and mediation as the only Saviour of the world.
8. The justification of sinners solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
9. The ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who leads us to repentance, unites us with Christ through new birth, empowers our discipleship and enables our witness.
10. The Church, the body of Christ both local and universal, the priesthood of all believers given life by the Spirit and endowed with the Spirit's gifts to worship God and proclaim the gospel, promoting justice and love.
11. The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS about the church:

How is church financed?

The church is financed by generous giving. Any state funding the church receives is given to missions work. It lives or dies by the generosity of its members.


Are there any employees? 

Yes. By God's grace we have been able to raise a token salary to support Christian.
Other than this, the eldership team works voluntarily and receives no payment for these services.
In the future we hope to have an full time paid eldership team, as well as a number of apprentices who can be paid a stipend to cover living costs.


What if I want to give?

Fantastic! As Christians we are called to give generously, thoughtfully and wisely, remembering that our money is not our money but God’s money given generously to us. As Randy Alcorn puts it “We don’t decide how much of our money we are going to give away, but rather how much of God’s money we are going to keep for ourselves.”

This is not an infomercial, pressuring you to call that number NOW to give. Giving should be joyful, not pressured; and thought-through, not in at an emotional whim.

There is also no such thing as “seed giving” (i.e.: “if you give kr100 now God will bless you with abundant wealth”). That is unbiblical nonsense, and it is idolatry. It is idolatry because it is dressing up greed and desire for wealth in Christian clothes. We don’t give money to get more money. We give money because we have been given life and salvation by our great God, and we want to support the work of the church in spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ.

Giving is a careful decision where your responsibilities to your family, friends, church, and bank manager(!) needs to be though through.

A good guide is to give away 10% of your after-tax income (ie.: 10% of what gets paid into your bank account). If, like me, you always end up giving less than you planned because other things come up that “need” to be purchased: I’ve found to helpful to set up an automatic transfer on payday so I don’t get tempted to keep the money I’ve decided to give!

Our bank account is on the home page.


Is the church part of a denomination (kirkesamfunn)?

Not yet, but plans are underway.
It was planted as an independent church with the view to joining a local Norwegian denomination. We have decided against this for the first few years because of an alarming amount of "tribalism" between different denominations. We are founding members of The Gospel Coalition Nordic, and are working towards establishing reformed evangelical expository partnerships. We are in discussion with a leading Norwegian denomination to see if we should join with them.


Why does the church use the same structure (liturgy) every week?

Because we are a multi-national church with people from all around the world with English or Norwegian as their second, third, fourth...etc language! By having the same prayers and structure every week it makes it easy for people to follow, and to understand the majority of what is being said. For example, if there's a word you don't know you can look it up or ask the meaning so that next week you understand it.

We are working hard to make the liturgy simple and understandable. If you have any improvements, let us know!


What if I need counselling?

Please come. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, here to serve and love each other in a world ravaged by sin. We know sin, and we know grace. Please contact us either after the service or otherwise in the week to arrange a time to meet, read the Bible, pray and discuss the issues you are facing.