Our Mission
Our core essential belief is that God is all powerful, all loving and is always present. He has revealed Himself most perfectly in His Son, Jesus Christ through whom He has demonstrated His love for us and His desire to be known by us.
Our mission is to lead people to love and worship God by following Jesus, practicing His teachings in community, and proclaiming His message of love, hope and faith.
What We Believe
We are a Christian community that follows Jesus, teaches from the Bible, desires to honor God above all, and proclaims the Good News that we are rescued from sin and evil by Jesus.
We recognize the importance of sound doctrine, but also grieve that doctrinal differences in non-essentials divides the church unnecessarily. We desire to promote genuine unity within the Body of Christ based on unity in the Spirit in the bond of peace while also preserving the essential and foundational doctrines of our historic faith.
"There are certain basic Christian truths about which there must be agreement.
On all other doctrines there should be liberty.
In all things there must be love.” — Christian Missionary
"The goal of our instruction is love, from a pure heart and a sincere faith" — I Timothy 1:5
Core Values
The following four core values help guide us as a community of believers in Jesus.
JESUS CENTERED
It is our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior and our commitment to live as He taught us to live as humans in God's image that defines us as a church family. We believe that Jesus is present with us by the Spirit of God. It is His beauty and presence that motivates and guides our life together.
RELATIONAL
One of our highest ethics as a christian community is love. For Jesus, love is more than an emotional attachment, it is the way in which we treat and care for one another. And so we value healthy relationships that embody the same love demonstrated by Jesus. Relational also means communal. God in His nature and character is communal. Through Jesus, God is creating a new human family. To be fully human in God's image includes creating and living within loving communities.
LEARNING COMMUNITY
Followers of Jesus are often called disciples – which is an old term for students. So, in a sense, we are students learning the way of life and the way of the kingdom of heaven from Jesus and through the Scriptures He valued as part of His own story. We believe that learning is a community exercise; and that therefore, everyone has something to receive and to give as we grow together.
ON MISSION TOGETHER
We believe that Jesus came with purpose and continues to work with purpose from heaven through His communities of followers on earth. This purpose is to bring the kingdom of God (God's reign), to restore humans to God's image, to bring justice and righteousness and to testify to the truth of God.
Foundational Beliefs That We Affirm
GOD. We believe in the triune God: one God revealing himself in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is Great, above all else, all wise, all powerful, all loving and the only One worthy of all worship and glory.
GOD, OUR FATHER. God is the Creator of everything. He is good, He is love, and He can be completely trusted. In Him we have life, meaning and an eternal future.
JESUS CHRIST. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and fully divine in every way.. He is also completely human. Jesus is the second person of the triune God. We believe that through His life, death and resurrection, God has decisively and completely dealt with the sin and evil of this world. God’s grace is fully realized when we put our faith in Jesus. He currently reigns over all creation at the right hand of The Father.
HOLY SPIRIT. The Holy Spirit is the third person in the triune God. In Him God’s presence is with us and in us. He leads us into all truth and exalts Jesus Christ. He empowers us with the life of Christ.
THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURES. We believe in the Divine inspiration and authority of the Bible. We believe it was written for all people for all generations. It is trustworthy, it is relevant to our daily lives and it is the foundation for all our teaching.
HUMANITY. We believe that each person has been created in the image of God for the purpose of knowing Him and making Him known. Because of this each person has inherent dignity. However, because of unbelief and disobedience which leads to sin, every person has been separated from relationship with God and the eternal life that is in Him. Therefore, each of us is under the sentence of death. God, in His love and mercy, has a plan of redemption to restore us to His eternal purpose.
SALVATION AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS. All of humanity and all of creation are suffering because of sin and evil.Our separation from God is reflected in our unbelief, our ignorance, our rebellion, and our obstinance. However, God’s love, mercy, salvation and forgiveness is given to us in Jesus Christ. The life of Jesus demonstrated God’s love and grace. The death of Jesus paid the price for all our sin. And the resurrection of Jesus proves the power of God to give new life. Salvation from evil and forgiveness of sins is completely the work of God’s grace and is beyond anything anyone could possibly do to merit it. It is the height of folly and arrogance to think you could live in such a way as to earn or deserve it. God’s grace comes to us only by faith in Jesus Christ.
THE CHURCH. The Church is not an organizational structure or an institution, but a global community of believers who have been born again and follow Jesus Christ. This global community is comprised and many, many local communities of believers who gather together to worship God, study the teachings of Jesus, the apostles and prophets as recorded in the Bible, to pray together and to live their lives together in accordance with the way of Jesus.
