What We Believe

What We Believe

It’s All About Love

GOD

Life is all about love… God-the-lover creating the universe. We believe God’s plan is for the redemption of the whole creation.

JESUS

Jesus, the revealer of God’s love, reached out to all – the poor, the outcast, and those told they were not worthy of God’s love.    God’s love is unconditional, for the good of all humans and all creation. 

SPIRIT

The work of God’s presence in the Holy Spirit is in the world today – present in this life, in people who strive to be loving as God loves. God is here, present, hidden and surprising us, in powerful, unexpected ways, always moving creation toward the light, into abundant life. 

CHURCH

Disciples
Those who desire to follow the way of love, who seek God’s goodness, commit to follow in the loving way of Jesus. Such people are BAPTIZED with water and God’s Spirit to mark the death of one manner of existence and the resurrection of the life of Jesus within the believer.  The disciple is simply a student of Jesus who commits to understand the way of Jesus, to follow it, to look for the life to come (eternal life, heaven) breaking into the world today.

The gathering of the students of Jesus
We think of ourselves as the gathering of the students of Jesus.  This is a community who together learn the way of Jesus, hold ourselves accountable to His way, and challenge ourselves to live into self-giving love to others. 

The first rule
Readiness to live in the community of Jesus comes with the recognition that you are perfectly imperfect, a person who has broken pieces on their way to wholeness, who knows their need for God, who, in humility, deeply desires to make a new start with others on a similar journey. 

The Second Rule
This isn’t your journey.  This is the journey of Jesus into you.  
Christ sets the pace and pattern of the Christian life so we allow for variation in the Christian life.  Christ is working renewal in each person as a custom work of art – We make room for the “different” knowing that some of God’s most magnificent works of art are saints formed from unusual materials.  

For we are God’s masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”  Ephesians 2: 10

The Goal
Christ-likeness. 
The Christian life is about change: our lives changing, shaping, transforming because of God’s presence in it.   As Jesus journeys into your life he will change things and will replace your desires with His own.  That’s the strange and wonderful and breath-taking thing about God’s love and power when it enters your life. 

Finally, it isn’t ultimately for you
This pathway of Jesus isn’t about getting rich, finding fame, getting your fantasies met, or even about staking out a secure corner of eternal life.  It isn’t about security, it is about the journey with Jesus: going where he wants to go, doing what needs to be done –to work, demonstrate and sacrifice so the love of God can be known in the world.  Jesus called this beautiful struggle “abundant life.”  You can have, too…right now. 

We believe in heaven and one day, God will reconcile all things. We look to that day when all heaven breaks loose and God finally gets God’s way and LIFE WILL BE ALL ABOUT LOVE. 

LUTHERAN

This is a name of a Christian movement with roots in the sixteenth century. Lutherans are the first “Protestant” Christians.  Today there are more than 70 million Lutherans all over the world (the highest concentration is in Northern Europe; but, this is about to change as the growth of Lutheran Christianity expands in the global South and East).

Martin Luther, a 16th century priest and monk of the Roman Catholic Church, sought reforms of his church that were ultimately rejected. His “protest” was vigorous and endangered his life.  Luther was a Bible scholar who discovered in Scripture that God is not a deity seeking command and control, but is a God of vulnerable mercy and love, seeking to forgive and reconcile sinners.  This term (or doctrine) from this way of reading Scripture is called “justification by grace through faith.” In other words, we are made right with God (justification) by God’s mercy (God’s choice to love us) which we receive when we trust (through faith) God’s promise, God’s love, God’s saving action in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  As we said earlier, love was as threatening back then as it is now.

God doesn’t love some and not others.  God does not love for a while and then turn it off when we mess up. God’s love is not a veneer, a thin covering over something else.  God’s love can be counted on thoroughly, through and through, eternally – the cross is God’s reminder that God would rather be torn apart than tear us apart.  The resurrection is God’s reminder that love wins. 

If you want to become a student of Jesus, a disciple, we welcome you.