Rescue
OUR MISSION & VALUES
Our Mission
To love God with our whole selves, and by his love, to rescue and restore those individuals and families who have been wounded by prostitution, abuse, abandonment and poverty in Recife, in Brazil, and in the World.
Our Vision
To see revival among the poor and reformation in the areas of prevention, intervention, and restoration of individuals and families through the revolutionary love of God expressed in fellowship, discipleship, education, shelter care, adoption, and cultural transformation.
Our Core Values
These five core values are considered vital to the life, growth, mission, and vision of our ministry. Each staff member must take it upon themselves to know them by heart and to live by them daily. Our core values are our response when people ask, “Who is Shores of Grace?” These values represent both who we are and why we do what we do. Each of our core values are based on principles found in the Scriptures.
1) Intimacy with God
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
The original position of man was face to face with Father God (Genesis 2:7) and we were created for his pleasure. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus we can experience intimacy, communication, and companionship with Him, if we share His love for righteousness. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can abide in the Father and the Son (John 14:16-17). God has adopted us as sons and daughters and we seek to always minister from his lap (Romans 8:15-17).
We cannot love others with a radical and transformative love unless we actually experience the love of the Father for ourselves first. We know the Father through a personal and covenantal relationship with Jesus; who is the revealer of God (John 1:18), the way to the Father (John 14:6) and His exact representation (Hebrews 1:3). Therefore, our first priority is not strategies, methods, or projects, but to intimately know Jesus. When we find Him, we find and gain everything… without Him, we can do nothing of real value.
Worship and intimacy with the Father is and will always be the foundational element of Shores of Grace. We consider it not only a great joy but also priority number one with the life of our ministry and the lives of our staff. As Paul said in Romans 12:2, a life surrendered, or a living sacrifice is our spiritual act of worship. Worship is a lifestyle.
We recognize that our intimacy with the Father will be expressed in our relationships with others. As we love God with all that we are, we learn to love others as he does. The culture of our missions bases is one of honor and encouragement. The fruits of the Spirit are our constant measuring stick for the abiding love of God in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). Therefore, we seek to be a passionate community of lovers of God and lovers of people.
2) Dependency on the Father
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
We are totally dependent on Him for everything, and we need and expect miracles of all kinds to sustain us and help us fulfill our mission and vision. When facing great human need and brokenness, we rapidly reach the limits of our natural resources, wisdom, and love.
In the face of hardship and lack we do not despair but eagerly expect God to do more than we could ask or imagine, to do what only He can do. We value hard work, honesty, and good stewardship; we will always be willing to do our part, but we know that all good things come from the Father and that he will provide far beyond the fruits of our labors.
Like Jesus, we seek to be one with the Father and so dependent on him that we can do nothing without him (John 5:19). We are walking adoption agents full of good news inviting all of the lost and broken to come to the banquet table of the Father (Romans 8:15). As we often pray, “show me how to love, teach me how to see,” we understand that he is the source of love and grace and we are merely joyful and humble vessels.
Our goal is to be the smallest jars of clay filled with the fullness of Him to show the world that this amazing power belongs to Him (2 Corinthians 4:7). We believe we experience miracles because we value them and ask for them. We will always seek the combination of love and power; we do not have to choose between them, but can look forward to doing even greater works than Jesus, while remaining in His love (John 14:12).
3) Revival, Reformation, Revolution
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
We recognize that the key to the nation is the one (Isaiah 60:22). We see and encounter Jesus among the least of these and the closer we are to them, the closer we are to His heart (Matthew 25). We go to the exploited, the abused, the abandoned. Not because it is our duty, but because it is our privilege and honor. The goal of reconciling humankind to the Father was the joy that was set before Christ as He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). Likewise, we see the lost and the broken as the joy of Christ and we share in that joy as His body. We serve the broken, poor and needy, not in pity or sorrow but with the joyful expectation of revival. They are history makers, reformers, leaders, and lovers in waiting. We believe that true revival should produce cultural reformation. Those who have been reconciled have also received the message and ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).
True revival is when those who have been reconciled to God begin to reconcile others in the name of Jesus. Those who have been revived in Christ should be overflowing with hope and creativity. Having been filled with the Holy Spirit and being children of the Creator, Christians should be the most creative people on earth. The results of revival should flow into all aspects of society (families, communities, streets, marketplaces, schools, businesses, the arts, and judicial systems).
Revival and reformation are the results of the revolutionary love of God. Likewise, when revival leads to reformation, we see a revolution of love in culture. Jesus taught a revolutionary message of love, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). True love, as modeled by Jesus, is sacrificial, selfless love – giving one’s life for others (John 15:13). As we pray for revival and reformation we seek to live this revolutionary love daily in the smallest of acts and in the greatest.
4) Joy in the Journey
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”
We believe that we were created for the journey and that the Father is with us every step of the way. God is eternally good. The circumstances of life do not determine his faithfulness and he will use all things for our good (Romans 8:28). In storms, we learn that he is our peace and in battles, we learn that he is our shield. We define radical faith as keeping our eyes on Jesus amidst the storms and battles of life. We do not seek out suffering but when it comes we rejoice knowing that Immanuel- God with us- never misses even one step of our journey. Like Paul, we rejoice in our weaknesses, for when we are weak we are strong.
In trials, we do not despair for discipline and testing are necessary in the Christian faith to produce holiness and maturity. We recognize that the world needs hope and we are the bearers of hope (Colossians 1:27). As Paul taught, suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-5).
In Christ, there is joy even in times of suffering. The joy of the Lord is not optional, and it far outweighs our suffering! It is a defining pillar of the Kingdom of God which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). In Jesus, joy becomes our motivation, reward, and spiritual weapon. In His Presence there is fullness of joy, and even in times of trouble our joy knows no bounds (2 Corinthians 7:4).
5) Urgency and Consistency
“…Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross…”
We have an urgency to see women and children caught in prostitution, exploitation, and abuse set free. We long to see the lost come home, broken families restored, and new families created. We never want the stories of brokenness and abandonment to become “normal,” and we must never become desensitized.
We always want to have urgency in our hearts. However, we also understand that it is a marathon not a sprint, and we desire to be consistent in love, commitment, and service. We understand that consistency is one of the most powerful tools we have for reaching the lost and restoring the broken. When things do not go as planned and results are seemingly slow, we do not lose our hope nor our passion.
We fix our eyes on Jesus who walked the earth with both urgency and consistency. We choose to be like our Father who is more consistent and more faithful than the waves of the ocean and the morning sun.