Beliefs

We believe God created the world and made it very good! (Genesis 1:31) In God’s good world, humans are created for relationship with God, each other, ourselves, and all of creation. When we broke our relationship with God, we broke every relationship. We see this in people’s personal lives, in society, and in the state of the environment. The persistent power of this brokenness means that we can’t heal these relationships on our own.

When God sees how broken we are, God can’t stand to be apart from us. God doesn’t stay at a distance. God comes here to us. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who is God with us. (Matthew 1:23) In the same way, we want to live lives of active love. When someone puts down their mask and shows their brokenness, we don’t run away. We go to them.

Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we receive forgiveness from guilt and freedom from our sinful brokenness (John 3:16-17). When we accept forgiveness from Jesus, we also receive the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit living in us. By the power of God’s Spirit in us, we are given freedom to live a life of love toward God and people, even people this world teaches us to hate (Romans 6:12-14).

We no longer live for ourselves. We live for Jesus Christ who saves us and teaches us a new way of life. As followers of Jesus, we go to where people are, listen to their stories, serve and show love in ways that are meaningful to them, and reveal Jesus with our actions and our words. (Matthew 6:34-40; Matthew 28:16-20).

We believe that the Bible is God-breathed (2 Timothy 2:15-17). Divinely inspired, the Bible was crafted by human authors from many times, places, and circumstances to communicate the experiences and messages they received from God. Sections of it take the forms of letters, narratives, history, fables, and poetry. We believe that every Christian is invited to wrestle with questions about God. Pastors and Bible Scholars shouldn’t tell you what to believe about every single thing. Instead, we challenge you to search the scriptures in your search for God’s truth, carrying with you the traditions of the church, your personal experience, and reason.

By inviting all Christians to read scripture, we know that we will not all come to the same conclusions about every opinion. That is ok with us and we believe God is big enough to handle it. In this way, we emphasize diversity in opinions and unity in the essentials of the faith, articulated by the church over 1500 years ago in the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed.

Hi, I’m Pastor Chris and I’d love to help you as you navigate through your faith journey. Whether you worship online, in-person, or are still looking for a church, I’d like to meet you. Meetings can be in-person over coffee, online via Zoom, or through a phone call. Click the button below to schedule a meeting! I can’t wait to meet you!