MISSION, VISION, AND VALUES

Mission Statement

The mission of Saint Barnabas Anglican Church is to love Christ through loving our neighbors.

Our Vision

The vision of Saint Barnabas Anglican Church is to transform Towson by transforming the hearts of our neighbors through the love of Christ.

Our Values

  • We believe in the truth of the Gospel and that scripture contains all that is necessary for salvation.

  • We value building a Christian community at Saint Barnabas that reaches the community surrounding us with the love of Christ and the truth and encouragement of His Gospel.

  • We strive to build personal relationships and community rooted in the love of Christ.

  • We believe in actively caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of our congregation and our neighbors.

  • We hold dear Anglican worship, which is reverent, joyful, and led by the Holy Spirit.

  • We will invest the resources that the Lord provides us by planting new neighborhood churches with a similar mission.

Who Was Saint Barnabas?

Saint Barnabas was born on the island of Cyprus. He was a Levite, which was a Jewish tribe that was not given any land of their own. Instead, the other tribes were to support them. In turn, the Levites serves the rest of the Israelites as administrators, teachers, and priests. We first encounter Saint Barnabas in the Book of Acts, selling his land to give the proceeds to the newly-forming Church in Jerusalem. From this we can appreciate his generosity.

We also find in scripture that he was a very well-respected man of great gravitas. But he had a more prominent gift. The original Apostles distrusted Paul and his conversion, remembering his zealous persecution of the Church. But it was Barnabas that vouched for him and convinced them that Saul had truly been converted by Jesus into Paul, illustrating the great respect that the Church leaders had for Barnabas. Even the pagan Greeks recognized this, believing that Paul was the incarnation of their god Hermes who was the messenger/spokesmen for the gods. But they saw Barnabas as the incarnation of Zeus, the king of the gods. His respectable integrity was apparent to all who encountered him. 

We know from scripture that Barnabas was generous with his treasure, time, and talents. He used all three of these gifts as Paul’s missionary companion as they were among the first evangelists and church planters.  His given name was Joseph, but the Apostles renamed him Barnabas, which means the encourager. It was this trait, among others, that must have led the Early Church to pair him with Paul on his first missionary journey to plant churches.

Barnabas’ characteristics are deeply instilled in this new church, beginning with integrity. We want you and everyone who encounters our community to be struck by our integrity and commitment to spread the Gospel. We want you to experience our generosity of time, talents, and treasure as we seek to serve our neighbors. Above all else, we want you to come away encouraged by any interaction that they have with us.