Transformation
We want to offer opportunities for people to discover faith, find strength, and get healing (heart and mind and body). We will give opportunities for people to encounter God’s truth, God’s love and God’s power. This will usually happen through those of us who have asked the Lord to use us and have come to church spiritually prepared to be used.
Genuineness
We chose to accept and welcome everyone regardless of where they are and what they are dealing with. It doesn’t matter if it’s those living in alternative lifestyles or non-Christian belief systems – the angry and disconnected; the disinterested and confused; the misunderstood and underappreciated – all are welcome to journey with us.
We believe it’s not our job to judge…it’s our job to love, pray, support and present Christ. It’s God’s job to correct, convict and change. We desire to model being real with one another, feeling no need to convince others we are someone we aren’t, no need to try to act more or better or bigger than we are. We can all come honestly, just as we are, to encounter God and be changed by Him.
Reverence
As a church, we try to keep an awareness of the incredible, beyond our imagination holiness, power, love, beauty and majesty of God. We recognize that He is not manageable. He is not here for our pleasure or our purpose…we are here for His. Our attitude, our words, our service, our giving, our participation should demonstrate this.
Relevance
We believe that the Biblical message is sacred, but the method of communicating it is not. The gospel (the good news that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins and offers us complete forgiveness and acceptance) is sacred, the way we teach or share or demonstrate that message must change and evolve as culture does.
If there is anything about the way we do church that keeps others from connecting with God than we should consider adapting it. We want to make sure that the way we do things makes it as easy as possible for anyone to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it.
Simplicity
There has never been a time when lives were more complex, when schedules were more cluttered, when people’s commitments, passions, and finances were stretched in so many directions
We can only do so many things well – we only have the energy, the time, the resources to do a few things well and we want to be a church that does things with excellence.
This means that even though some good things must be left undone, we choose to focus on what must be done…what the church must be about and then base everything we do on that. We believe the one thing the church must be about is helping people move through a process of spiritual growth and development…we often call this discipleship. Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples…we believe He meant that and we are working hard to help others to know God better and love Him more.