Core Beliefs
There is a God who created all things (Genesis 1 & 2)
The Bible teaches us that God has fully revealed his character and will in Jesus Christ (John 1:18, 14:9-10; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3, and so many other passages!). We can know God because he became a human being in Jesus and invites us to follow him so he can teach us what life is all about. When we surrender our lives to Jesus’ authority and guidance, he lives in us by his Spirit, and forms us into his likeness, and this is our true destiny.
God is love (1 John 4:16). Perfect, self-giving love that is expressed most fully in Jesus being crucified, and still loving and extending forgiveness to the very people who killed him. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity says that God is one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, God is perfect, relational love in God’s very being. If the God of Jesus Christ is the source of all that is (John 1:3-4), and this God is relational, Christlike love, then Christlike love and relationships are at the center of all that is. Christlike love for God and all people is at the heart of what God created us for (Matthew 22:34-40). At the end of the day, all that ultimately matters is the quality of our relationships with our Jesus-like God, ourselves, others (especially our enemies), and all creation. Growing in this love and these relationships is the abundant life that Jesus came to offer us, and the life that will one day be brought to perfection.
Our scriptures also reveal the hard reality that people reject God’s influence in their lives and choose to take matters into their own hands (Genesis 3). We look for life outside of the One who gave us life, and it leaves us empty and with lots of broken relationships with God and others. We refer to this as “sin”—the attitudes and actions that we harbor that resist God’s reconciling, peace-making purposes in our lives and relationships.
God sent Jesus into the world to help us to recognize our sin and rebellion so that we could confess its destructive power our lives, repent from our old unhealthy ways, and invite him to heal our broken hearts and show us the way to truly live—life in obedience to Jesus’ teachings (summarized in Matthew 5-7).
We also believe that although a personal, genuine relationship with Jesus is foundational, being a disciple of Jesus is not an individualistic endeavor. When we say yes to belonging to Jesus, we say yes to belonging his family—the church. The church is made up of all sorts of people with different backgrounds. It’s a wide diversity who are all united under the Lordship of King Jesus. And as we learn to love Jesus, we also learn to love everyone else who gathers with him, and very often times these are people who are noticeably different from us and with whom we may disagree. But it’s in God’s family where we’re learning to practice this love and reconciliation, and this is how we show the world something different and praiseworthy (Matthew 5:13-16).
This leads into the topic of the Kingdom of God/heaven that Jesus came to reveal (Luke 4:43). At the heart of the gospel is that Jesus is the true King/Lord/Messiah/Christ over all creation, and he has a kingdom that operates very differently than the kingdoms of this world. His kingdom and his loyal followers don’t conquer the world through force and violence and power the way the kingdoms of this world do. Jesus’ kingdom conquers by loving and serving others and wooing their hearts to gain their allegiance. Its weapons are not bullets and bombs, but radical love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Jesus and his followers conquer the world through loving and serving others, not by cutting others down. It’s a power-under way rather than a power-over way.
Eventually God’s kingdom will take over the world when he brings it in its fullness at the final judgment. We know what to anticipate for this because after Jesus’ crucifixion, he was resurrected from the dead, and is now seated in his position of authority next to God and continues to accomplish his purposes through the Spirit-filled body of Christ in the world—the church. And in his time, he will return, bringing the fullness of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and then all those who have dedicated their lives to the Lordship of Jesus and advancing his kingdom in the world will also be given resurrection bodies that inhabit the new and eternal creation. Until then, we live in light of that goal of God reconciling all things unto himself.
The Bible teaches us that God has fully revealed his character and will in Jesus Christ (John 1:18, 14:9-10; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3, and so many other passages!). We can know God because he became a human being in Jesus and invites us to follow him so he can teach us what life is all about. When we surrender our lives to Jesus’ authority and guidance, he lives in us by his Spirit, and forms us into his likeness, and this is our true destiny.
God is love (1 John 4:16). Perfect, self-giving love that is expressed most fully in Jesus being crucified, and still loving and extending forgiveness to the very people who killed him. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity says that God is one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, God is perfect, relational love in God’s very being. If the God of Jesus Christ is the source of all that is (John 1:3-4), and this God is relational, Christlike love, then Christlike love and relationships are at the center of all that is. Christlike love for God and all people is at the heart of what God created us for (Matthew 22:34-40). At the end of the day, all that ultimately matters is the quality of our relationships with our Jesus-like God, ourselves, others (especially our enemies), and all creation. Growing in this love and these relationships is the abundant life that Jesus came to offer us, and the life that will one day be brought to perfection.
Our scriptures also reveal the hard reality that people reject God’s influence in their lives and choose to take matters into their own hands (Genesis 3). We look for life outside of the One who gave us life, and it leaves us empty and with lots of broken relationships with God and others. We refer to this as “sin”—the attitudes and actions that we harbor that resist God’s reconciling, peace-making purposes in our lives and relationships.
God sent Jesus into the world to help us to recognize our sin and rebellion so that we could confess its destructive power our lives, repent from our old unhealthy ways, and invite him to heal our broken hearts and show us the way to truly live—life in obedience to Jesus’ teachings (summarized in Matthew 5-7).
We also believe that although a personal, genuine relationship with Jesus is foundational, being a disciple of Jesus is not an individualistic endeavor. When we say yes to belonging to Jesus, we say yes to belonging his family—the church. The church is made up of all sorts of people with different backgrounds. It’s a wide diversity who are all united under the Lordship of King Jesus. And as we learn to love Jesus, we also learn to love everyone else who gathers with him, and very often times these are people who are noticeably different from us and with whom we may disagree. But it’s in God’s family where we’re learning to practice this love and reconciliation, and this is how we show the world something different and praiseworthy (Matthew 5:13-16).
This leads into the topic of the Kingdom of God/heaven that Jesus came to reveal (Luke 4:43). At the heart of the gospel is that Jesus is the true King/Lord/Messiah/Christ over all creation, and he has a kingdom that operates very differently than the kingdoms of this world. His kingdom and his loyal followers don’t conquer the world through force and violence and power the way the kingdoms of this world do. Jesus’ kingdom conquers by loving and serving others and wooing their hearts to gain their allegiance. Its weapons are not bullets and bombs, but radical love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. Jesus and his followers conquer the world through loving and serving others, not by cutting others down. It’s a power-under way rather than a power-over way.
Eventually God’s kingdom will take over the world when he brings it in its fullness at the final judgment. We know what to anticipate for this because after Jesus’ crucifixion, he was resurrected from the dead, and is now seated in his position of authority next to God and continues to accomplish his purposes through the Spirit-filled body of Christ in the world—the church. And in his time, he will return, bringing the fullness of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and then all those who have dedicated their lives to the Lordship of Jesus and advancing his kingdom in the world will also be given resurrection bodies that inhabit the new and eternal creation. Until then, we live in light of that goal of God reconciling all things unto himself.