OUR VALUES GUIDE US

Our values ultimately answer the question “Why do we do what we do as a church?” They are shared convictions that guide our actions and reveal our strengths. They are springboards for action and filters for decision-making. Our Values represent the conscience of our church. These Values express the “why” behind what we choose to do and not do.

GRACE AND TRUTH

We celebrate the ways that we have received God’s grace and the fact God loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. We seek to extend grace and truth to others. We know that pursuing the highest good in ourselves and others means that we be both grace-filled and truth-filled.

We see the amazing combination of grace and truth in Jesus. The Gospel of John says this about Jesus as God’s Son:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:14, 16-17).

We want to be the type of Christian community where we extend the grace we have received as we love people enough to tell them the truth.

HEALING NOT HIDING

Our natural human response to shame is to hide—we hide from each other and hide from God.

This has been the case since Creation. The Bible describes how the first human beings responded to God when they had sinned and where ashamed: “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8).

Hiding keeps us from healing. We seek to be a compassionate, courageous community; a community in which we support each other as we choose healing over hiding. We support each other as we ask God to grow, change and heal us.

CALLING OVER COMFORT

God made us and God calls each one of us. We are called to love and worship God, and to point others to God as we live and love like Jesus right where we are. We believe that God also calls us individually.

As the Apostle Paul wrote: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).

God has designed each one of us to do good in our world according to our gifts and calling. We are a church that is committed to helping each other discover and become the people God has called each of us to be!

WORD AND SPIRIT

We are a church that holds the Bible, the Word of God, in the highest regard. It is our primary source of truth. Second Timothy 3:16-17 says that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

At the same time, we recognize that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives so that we can obey God’s Word. Jesus told his followers that they would receive the Holy Spirit and that the Spirit would “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

We seek to be a church that is both committed to God’s Word and seeks the power of the Holy Spirit.

99 FOR 1

Jesus was known for hanging out with those who were not religious, who felt far from God, and those whom other people saw as “sinners.” Rather than rejecting them, Jesus sought them out and spent time with them.

He told the story of a shepherd who, when one of his sheep wandered away, left his other 99 sheep to go in search of the one that had gone off on its own. When he came home with that sheep on his shoulders, he exclaimed to his friends and neighbors, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep!” (Luke 15:6).

We know that God views us this way and we see ourselves as God’s “search and rescue team.” We join Jesus in his mission to seek and save those who have lost their connection with God.