Beliefs
ABOUT GOD
We believe that there is one true, holy God, eternally existing and expressing Himself in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – each of whom possesses equally all the attributes of deity and characteristics of personality. In the beginning God formed out of nothing the world and everything in it, including humanity created in His image. And from that beginning He has been relentlessly desiring and pursuing a personal, intimate, and eternal relationship with His creation. (Genesis 1-2; John 1.1-4)
ABOUT BEING SEPARATED FROM GOD (this part is not so good)
We believe, even though God created humans to live in relationship with Him, that brokenness and separation entered the world (see Genesis 3), and our relationship with God became fragmented and distorted. The image of God in which we were created was now broken; That initial defiance by humans resulted in a separation in our relationship with God, and there was and is nothing we can do on our own to reestablish that union with our Father… BUT we also believe that God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay; rather He promised to pursue and restore this broken world and bring His family back together. (Genesis 3; Exodus 6.6-7, 19.5-6; Romans 1-3)
ABOUT JESUS (here’s the best part)
We believe that our longings to be reunited with our Creator found their fulfillment in Jesus, mysteriously God in the flesh. Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted and set captives free.; He lived a perfect life, incarnating the arrival of a new Kingdom, a new way of being human. He was rejected by many, crucified, buried, and rose again. His death and resurrection bring hope to all creation. Through Jesus God puts His family back together. It is in the example of the postures and priorities of Jesus that we base our call to tell this story of life over death, to proclaim this new kind of kingdom and to participate in this new way to be human. (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; Hebrews 4:14-16)
ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT
The third person of God (Father & Son being the two others) is the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit resides in every follower of Jesus. The Holy Spirit lives and moves and is a source of assurance, strength and wisdom and equips and empowers each with talents and abilities for the purpose of participating in this here and now kingdom of God. (John 14 & 16; Acts 2; Romans 8)
ABOUT THE BIBLE
We believe the Bible to be the voices of many who have come before us, inspired entirely by God to continue to speak to us today. In the overall narrative of scripture we have been given are God revealing His very heart and nature to us. The Bible is less about a manual for life, and more about the God of all creation and how He pursues His people. God calls us to immerse ourselves in this unfolding, authoritative narrative by living according to the story so far and playing our roles in the story of God continuing to be written. (2 Timothy 3:16,17; 2 Peter 1:19-21)
ABOUT THE CHURCH
We believe there is one church, universal (a people, not a place or a building) comprised of all those who align through belief in Jesus. We believe that the church, as a people, is called to engage the culture incarnationally and to put the resurrected Christ who lives in and through us on display to a broken and hurting world. We believe that God is a sending God, a God who calls His people (the church) to participate in His mission to put the world back together through Jesus. (Acts 1-12; Matthew 5:13-16)