Theology
Some Foundational Beliefs
Love God - I see this as our central call. For me, this looks like action. It is so important to have an intellectual faith. Yet it is equally important to have a life that is changed based on that knowledge. How does what we believe change how we actually live? This is the question that is always burning in my mind and heart as I proclaim God's word or hear it proclaimed.
Love our neighbors - Every person walking this earth was made by God and therefore carries the mark of belovedness and inherent value that comes as being part of God’s creation. This extends to the earth that God made and everything that lives in it.
Sincerely care for one another - Sincere care looks like showing up for one another, being present, celebrating and mourning, dignifying and cherishing our family in Christ. I believe sincere care is not just a Biblical mandate on the Christian’s life but is one of the most transformational tools at our disposal in our congregations.
Know where you are - I believe that knowing and understanding where you are (your church building, your neighborhoods, and your communities) is essential to the work that we are called to do. Cultural awareness and sensitivity are essential aspects of loving our neighbors, caring for them, and sharing the love of God with them.
Statement of faith.
We worship the eternal, infinite God of Abraham; there is no other. God is perfectly loving, perfectly just, knowing all things and ruling over all things. God is three in one, being of the same substance; Father, Son, and Spirit. God created the universe and everything in it and it was perfectly good.
After creating all things, God made the first man and woman out of the earth; to embody and imitate God’s own character in the world, and everything was good. But things did not remain as God intended. Our first parents were not content to merely bear God’s likeness in the world, and in rebellion, decided to disobey God and attempt to be God themselves. This great disobedience infected humanity and all of creation from that point forward with a deep brokenness called sin. Sin is what keeps us from peace with God. It keeps us from loving our neighbor. We engross ourselves with all that we want. We ignore the pains of the world. Things are no longer the way that they should be.
But God, in his tenacious love, through his Son, Jesus, made a way for the disobedience to be forgiven; restoring humanity’s ability to once again be who we ought to be, mirroring God through the power of the Holy Spirit so that we might emulate this restoration in our relationships with one another and with the world. Now things could become the way they were meant to be.
Jesus Christ is the son of God: truly God and truly human. Jesus lived the sinless life that we could not; he taught empires and peoples about his Father. He performed miracles and set people free from the lies that kept them from every good thing. Jesus defeated the powers of sin and death that our first parents infected us with through his own life, death, and resurrection that we may have perfect peace with God.
The Holy Spirit continues the work of restoring things to how they were meant to be and draws human life, the land, and the world to celebrate that restoration and participate in it. The Spirit beckons and equips us to follow and imitate Christ through the church. The church, whose foundation is Christ, is God’s own children in heaven and on earth who, having confessed faith in Jesus Christ, received the full forgiveness of sins. Before Christ, we see God’s church in Israel, whom God chose to embody and imitate his character to a world that had forgotten him. The church is Christ’s first love and God calls the church to be unified, embodying his call to righteousness as agents of and a witness to his love, mercy, grace and redemption on earth until Christ takes us to our true home.
The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are God’s gifts to the church as marks, reminding us of God’s deep connection with us, the fulfillment of his promises, and peace with humanity through Jesus. Baptism marks us as belonging to God’s own people as God’s grace came to us even before we could respond. The sacraments remind believers of what God is doing through Christ and in us, offering us forgiveness for our sins and life that will never end. The sacraments are different from our everyday experiences of life; they are special, jogging our memories and affirming that God comes to us, that God became us, that God draws us up in Christ before him to be healed and restored.
The scriptures, central to our worship of God, holds within its pages the words that we need to grasp the potency of God’s character. Scripture is a living lens that allows us to see ourselves most accurately. Scripture tells us how God intended everything to be from the very moment God first spoke everything into existence. The Spirit guides us as we read and understand its words, for the Spirit first conceived and spoke them.
