 Looking at the earliest picture of New Testament church which is found in Acts 2:41-47 we find 5 clear purposes on which we base our church life:
1) Know & Worship God Acts2:47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people At the center, our primary purpose is to Know and Worship God. It’s more than ‘singing songs’ - as the prophet Jeremiah spoke thousands of years earlier - it's about knowing God.(Jer 31) The message that you will hear spoken at the King’s Arms over and over again is God is not a distant God. He longs to draw near to each one of us – he is the perfect heavenly Father and we have been created to know him and worship him.
2) Equip for service Acts 2:43 “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Every one of us has a part to play. Church is not a spectator sport. Whether it’s ministry to the disadvantaged (we have a calling as a church to reach the poor), or training to be a counselor, or stewarding, or teaching or praying for the sick or giving or worship we all have a role. Our purpose, both individually and as a church is to be and do everything that God has made us for. 3) Spiritual Growth Acts 2:42 “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” We place a high value on the fact that the Christian life is a journey – a journey towards maturity in Christ. It’s not a journey that we take on alone, but something that we do together. Discipleship happens through relationship with Jesus, obedience to him, and modeling our life after His. This is one of our highest goals - to order our lives around the things Jesus did to become the man that he was. Who we are is more important than what we do. 4) World & Local Mission Acts 2:41 “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” The passage in Acts 2 starts and ends with people being added to the church. The King’s Arms exist because we are on a mission together – not just here in Bedford but across the world. With news this good we feel that we have a responsibility to tell others – both the people we live and work around and also to those in other nations. 5) Belong to Family Act 2:46 “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” Relationships are what hold people together in the local church and attract people to come in. The King’s Arms exists because we belong to one another. Our aim is to be an inclusive family rather than exclusive one. A family that is by it’s very nature a place where people feel that they can belong and can invite others to join. Jesus said ‘if you love one another then they’ll know you’re my disciples” – that’s what we want to achieve. We also believe that family is just that – the whole family and not just the adults. We have an ever growing children’s ministry called King’s Kids and an exciting youth ministry ‘Innovation’.
 These 5 purposes sum up what the King’s Arms is all about – who we are, why we exist and what we spend our time doing.
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