Values
 

Fervent Prayer 
We can only be a faith-filled church as we move forward in prayer.  We can only truly move forward as we are on our knees before God. One of our core values is fervent prayer.  The church is divine in origin, and it continues to be divine because God through Jesus Christ empowers the church to follow Jesus faithfully.  We grow spiritually as we move forward in the power of the Holy Spirit and the more we stay centered in Christ, totally open and yielded to the Spirit's wisdom and power,  the more we will fulfill God's plan for His people.

 

Diligent Study of Scripture
To be strong in Christ, we must be rooted and grounded in His Word. Therefore we seek to be a church that diligently studies the Holy Scriptures.  God's Holy Word is primary in our life together. The Scripture guides us in all our decisions.  The Scripture informs us as well as transforms us as we put the truth into action.  In order to practice the truth,  we must know the truth.  Jesus prayed for his disciples that we would be made whole, set apart for God, through His word.  Together as the body of Christ we seek to understand and apply God's Word to our everyday living.
 

        
Radical Hospitality
One of our core values is Radical Hospitality.  We welcome everyone here at Hardy, regardless of race or background or religious history- we welcome everyone because God welcomes everyone.  His love is unconditional.  That means there are no strings attached when it comes to welcoming people who are in our midst and the people around us.  Practical love has a divinely generated magnetic power.   People do not want to just hear about love, they want to experience how Christian love really works.  Everything we do here at Hardy needs to have this mark of love. We are the church with the warm  heart, and we want to live up to that motto.

            
Passionate Worship
Today people are hungry for genuine worship.  They are looking for a genuine expression of faith that is real and exciting.  Real faith leads to passionate worship because the more intimate we are with God, the more we will care for people around like Jesus cares. When we gather on Sundays for our blended worship at 10:45 am, we desire to experience the presence of God.  Here at Hardy we want to worship in Spirit and truth.  We want to encounter the living God.  The primary issue is not style, it is whether or not we are truly worshiping.  We want everyone present to be inspired.  The word “inspired” means that we are “affected and influenced” by God’s Spirit.  We hope and pray that every worship experience will be a genuine encounter with the living God.  We want every worship service to be a joyous and inspiring experience that leads us to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.  Churches that are full of Christians who are “enthusiastic” about their faith and their church will grow strong.  On the other hand, if the church tends toward petty legalism, where people only come to church to earn brownie points with God and do God a favor, then they are missing the boat.  The theological core of the matter is a genuine and growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Everything we do here at Hardy needs to clearly exhibit a deep passionate spirituality!
 

Faith-forming Relationships
Because one of our core values is faith forming relationships, we encourage the involvement of everyone in a small group that facilitates sharing and loving and accountability in order to grow spiritually. Small groups are offered such as our Sunday school classes or our Disciples Bible Study groups, or new groups can be started to nurture our faith as well as express our faith. In these smaller groups people can get to know each other in a way that God’s truth is applied to our daily lives.  In these small groups centered on God’s Word, the issues and questions related to immediate personal concerns are brought up. Discipleship is a practical matter of life changes, not just learning abstract concepts.  The Church staff is “relationship-oriented”.  What we mean by that is that the staff and lay leaders concentrate their efforts in order to empower other Christians for ministry.  The key word here is "empowering". The goal of the church staff and leadership is to help church members attain the spiritual potential God has for them. The job of our leadership is to equip, support, and motivate people and mentor individuals’, enabling them to become all God wants them to be.  The majority of time spent by the staff and leadership is to help the church members grow as disciples by delegating the ministries to gifted volunteers, thus multiplying the ministries of the church.  Hardy has a reputation of being a church of dedicated laity who are involved in ministry.  We hope to keep it that way!

              
Risk-taking Mission
Our ministries seek to take risks- to step out and to reach out and touch all with the grace of our Lord Jesus. That is why we value "risk taking" mission.  At Hardy, we are involved in a variety of mission projects on the local level as well as in other countries. But as we grow here at Hardy, we want to learn how God has uniquely gifted each person so that our ministries are based on the gifts God uniquely assigns to Christians by the Holy Spirit.  God in his love determines the gifts, the talents, skills and the personality of every Christian.  Each person is shaped for service.  The role of the church leadership is to help each member identify their gifts and to integrate them into meaningful and fulfilling ministry. That is why we hope that every church member will commit to at least one or two things they can do during the year. We have a form you can fill out  so we can know how you want to be involved. Our Christian Education Director has this information. 
We seek to fulfill the Great Commission to "go" into the world and share the Good News.  While it is the responsibility of every Christian to tell others about the life changing message of Jesus Christ, some Christians are gifted by God to be especially effective in evangelism.  People with this gift need to be involved in helping Hardy develop an effective evangelistic ministry.  We want to connect with this community and develop evangelistic efforts based on the questions and needs of non-Christians.
To reach out, every Saturday Hardy serves a delicious hot meal to the area of Rose Hill.  Over 120 of the Homeless and working poor come to receive a free lunch.  We also have 8 men who minister in the prison every Thursday, helping prisoners know they are loved by God and that they can grow in their faith if they choose to even while in prison.  We welcome ideas regarding evangelism and connecting with the community.

                        
Connectional Ministry
Here at Hardy, we want to create the kind of organized effort that promotes an ongoing multiplication of ministry, where leaders develop more leaders.  We want to be flexible and creative as we listen very closely to everyone’s suggestions for improvement.  We will function well as we continually evaluate our church structures in order to improve the self-organization of the church. While we do this at the local level, there are other systems in place that help us to be faithful.  The United Methodist Church is a "Connectional" church.  What does that mean?  It means all United Methodist brothers and sisters help each other in our mission to be faithful.  It means we are connected organizationally and have a responsibility to work together under the leadership of our Bishop and her District Superintendents.  It means we follow the rules and standards in our "Book of Discipline" as our guide in how we operate as a church.  It means we support and adhere to the policies and guidance of the officials in our denomination. Being "connectional" strengthens us in all we do.
From the earliest days of the Methodist Class Societies, John Wesley talked about the “connection”.  By that he meant Methodists would be a corporate body, accountable to each other, supportive of each other, who would pool their resources to carry out the mission of the Church.  Our apportionments are one way we participate in the connection Church.  If one church fails to do its part, people, ministries, programs, students as well as pastors suffer.  Our apportionments are important and do make a difference both at home and around the world.   
“Therefore, the local church is to minister to persons in the community where the church is located, to provide appropriate training and nurture to all, to cooperate in ministry with other local churches, to defend God’s creation and live as an ecologically responsible community, and to participate in the worldwide mission of the church as minimal expectations of an authentic church.”  Par. 202, the Book of Discipline 2004.

Here at Hardy Memorial, we believe in these core values, and through keeping them, we will grow stronger and glorify God in our ministry.  We want to build our master plan this year with these core values in mind as we look at our needs, our purpose, our objectives, milestones, ideas, and roadblocks.  Using these core values, we will look at our current and needed resources, and establish quarterly goals, 0-2 year goals, 2-5 year goals and 5-10 year goals in order to be a faithful church.