Anaheim First Christian Church exists to bring glory to God. We desire to demonstrate Jesus' love and teachings by leading people to a growing relationship with Him and by building caring relationships among people of all ages and cultures, locally and world-wide. We will seek to accomplish this by:

• Preaching and teaching the Bible as God's truth for daily living
• Eagerly presenting God's plan of salvation
• Promoting the spread of God's message throughout the world
• Equipping Christians to understand and use the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit
• Helping bring people to maturity in Christian living as they express their faith in service to others
• Promoting disciplines of Christian living, among which are prayer, worship, Bible reading, purity, and stewardship
• Continually developing ministries focused on specific needs

We are fortunate to have a well thought out Mission Statement. Significant energy has been put into helping our congregation understand it. It has been concisely paraphrased in the words on the wall of our entry: AFCC Where....People Serve, Love Grows and Lives Change.

Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, we have stated that we want to be a multi-ethnic, multi-generational congregation reflecting and affecting our local community. A clear understanding of the demographics of our area and an analysis of who is already part of this congregation has shown us two "tracks" that are clearly identifiable: the local community and the larger regional area of North Orange County.

The challenges presented by this new paradigm will require significant energy and commitment. Models for this identity have yet to be found. We must begin to think of our efforts here in the "trail blazing" category rather than following a map that is available.

We are non-denominational. We are affiliated with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. There is no regional or national headquarters. We are not required to pay dues or support denominationally selected para-church organizations or missionaries. We prefer to think that we are united in a common purpose but not a common government with other congregations. We are totally autonomous and consider Scripture as our primary authority.

It is the vision of Anaheim First Christian Church to become a church that more and more combines expanding diversity with ever-increasing unity. We want to be a multi-ethnic, multi-generational church that models the message of Luke-Acts in the scriptures: Jesus is for everybody; the poor, the powerless, and the racially-ethnically separated. We believe that the New Testament strongly prescribes a church of great diversity that is nevertheless one church.

In Acts 6, when faced with ethnic tension and conflict in the Jerusalem Church, the apostles took steps to address the tension in a way that reaffirmed the unity of the body. They did not establish a separate ethnic church for Greek speaking and Aramaic speaking Christians. In Ephesians 2:14-16 Paul urges Gentile and Jewish Christians in conflict in that church to be empowered by the Jesus who...

"…himself is our peace, who has made the two [Gentiles and Jews] one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

The beautiful Cloud of Witnesses Memorial Window was designed to give honor to those whose lives exemplified Christian faith and who continue to encourage us to run the race that is set before us as described in Hebrews 12:1,2. The window's design incorporates the theme of discipleship, the lifestyle that leads to becoming a part of that cloud. Upon accepting the Son, we enter the blue waters of baptism and are filled with God's Holy Spirit (dove). We become students of God's Word, thus learning to receive His promises (rainbow). The loaf (grain of wheat) is taken in remembrance of His blood shed for our sin. In obedience to Christ's example and command, we become fishers of men (nets and fish). All who remain faithful to the end, however, will receive the crown of righteousness laid up for us in Heaven. (2 Timothy 4:8)

We practice adult baptism by immersion. As a congregation that seeks to pattern itself after the Church described in the Book of Acts, we believe that baptism is important because it follows the example of Christ, because He commanded it, and because every conversion in the Book of Acts included immersion.

We take communion every Sunday. We consider it the focal point of our corporate worship because we meet to remember His sacrifice for us and to "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" 1 Corinthians 11:26.