We gather together on Sundays and scatter throughout our region in City Groups throughout the week.
Gather | Sundays
We gather on Sundays to celebrate Jesus, delight in his Word, worship Him together, and remember the Lord’s Supper and baptism. Our Sunday gatherings serve the broader mission of multiplying disciples and churches. Citylight Kids is available for ages 8 weeks through 5th grade, offering age-appropriate discipleship, but children are always welcome to join us in our worship gatherings any Sunday!
Scatter | City Groups
We scatter throughout the week in City Groups - the heart of our church. A City Group is a small- to mid-sized community of people growing in the Gospel, studying the Bible, connecting as a family, and serving a specific neighborhood or network in the region. These groups are small enough to care for each other’s growth in Christ but big enough to make a difference in their culture.
CORE VALUES
The values that drive Citylight Church are a commitment to reveling
in God’s act of reaching down to us in the gospel and responding by reaching up, in, and out.
Down | Gospel
The gospel is the good news that God came down to us in his Son, Jesus, to defeat sin and death and their effects in our world. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has initiated and accomplished what we never could. He has overcome the penalty and power of sin and brought us into intimate relationship with God the Father. The gospel is the power for personal salvation and transformation as well as the renewal of neighborhoods, cities, and nations.
Up | Spiritual Formation
We have all been formed into a certain kind of person. The gospel doesn't just to save us from hell, but forms us into the image of Jesus (Gal. 4:19). The gospel isn't only the ABCs of following Jesus, but the A to Z - influencing every part of our lives and transforming us from the inside out to be more like Jesus. We're committed to being a church that challenges people to personal repentance and faith in Jesus for a changed and transformed life.
In | Community
The church is not a place but a people. It’s not just a weekly assembly of individuals, but a community committed to loving each other well and doing life together. Therefore we don't only invite people to discover a Savior to believe in, but also a family to belong to! God is calling a people to Himself, building them into a family, and filling them with love for one another.
Out | Mission
The church is God’s missionary agency, God's mission strategy to reach the world with the good news of Jesus Christ! Therefore, “missions” is not one ministry within our church, but the very DNA of our church. The same gospel that transforms us also sends us outward on mission. We exist as a church on mission to be “a city on a hill” and “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). We do this by orienting each of our City Groups around a shared mission – seeking to love, serve, and make disciples among neighborhoods and networks of people in Council Bluffs and the Southwest Iowa region.
Our Denomination
Citylight is a church within the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. The C&MA is a missionary and church-planting movement that has a rich history of planting churches in the United States and all over the world.
“The Alliance is a unique missionary denomination—a maverick movement into whose soul the Head of the Church breathed “Go!” from the very start.”
—L.L. King, C&MA President (1978-1987)
Citylight Church is accountable to the leadership and doctrinal statements of the C&MA. You can view our doctrinal statement and learn more about the C&MA at www.cmalliance.org. In addition, maintaining a commitment to gospel-centered ministry, we also gladly affirm the Gospel Coalition’s foundation documents which can be read at www.thegospelcoalition.org.
There is one God, who is infinitely perfect, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ is the true God and the true man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He died upon the cross, the Just for the unjust, as a substitutionary sacrifice, and all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood. He arose from the dead according to the Scriptures. He is now at the right hand of Majesty on high as our great High Priest. He will come again to establish His kingdom, righteousness and peace.
The Holy Spirit is a divine person, sent to indwell, guide, teach, empower the believer, and convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
The Old and New Testaments, inerrant as originally given, were verbally inspired by God and are a complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men. They constitute the divine and only rule of Christian faith and practice.
Man was originally created in the image and likeness of God: he fell through disobedience, incurring thereby both physical and spiritual death. All men are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The portion of the unrepentant and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment; and that of the believer, in everlasting joy and bliss.
Salvation has been provided through Jesus Christ for all men; and those who repent and believe in Him are born again of the Holy Spirit, receive the gift of eternal life, and become the children of God.
It is the will of God that each believer should be filled with the Holy Spirit and be sanctified wholly, being separated from sin and the world and fully dedicated to the will of God, thereby receiving power for holy living and effective service. This is both a crisis and a progressive experience wrought in the believer's life after conversion.
Provision is made in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ for the healing of the mortal body. Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil are taught in the Scriptures and are privileges for the Church in this present age.
The Church consists of all those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, are redeemed through His blood, and are born again of the Holy Spirit. Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church, which He has commissioned to go into all the world as a witness, preaching the gospel to all nations. The local Church is a body of believers in Christ who are joined together for the worship of God, for edification through the Word of God, for prayer, fellowship, the proclamation of the gospel, and observance of the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
There shall be a bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust; for the former, a resurrection unto life; for the latter, a resurrection unto judgment.
The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent and will be personal, visible, and premillennial. This is the believer's blessed hope and is a vital truth which is an incentive to holy living and faithful service.