My family and I, along with other fellow believers, are sojourners in this world. We are homesick for the new heavens and the new earth and the day when all things will be made right. All our hope is in the covenant promises of God fulfilled through the person and saving work of Christ. With this Hope, we learn to live in this upside down kingdom. Here are our core values:
The Beauty of God
God is our supreme delight. Enjoying and displaying his magnificence is the reason we exist. We celebrate his beauty in our worship, art, care for creation, and every part of our lives.
The Word of God
God speaks to his people in the scriptures and especially through his Son, Jesus Christ. His word is true truth, and we rely on it for encouragement, instruction, comfort, and life. The Word is dynamic in turning persons estranged from God to himself.
The Kingdom of God
We proclaim that the everlasting Kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus. This rule of God turns human values upside down and calls us to repent and believe the good news. Our resurrected king is strong in his desire to set us free from sin and heal us.
Discipleship
We are being changed to the core by following Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit we obey him with joy. Through our worship, service, teaching, and small groups we learn to be disciples and make disciples.
Community
People are made for community. By exposing our common need for him, Jesus breaks down all the barriers that divide us. By his cross he reconciles us to God and to each other. In this costly unity we are learning to live honestly and without fear.
Mercy and Justice
As people who have been forgiven much, we extend forgiveness to each other. As people who have been made rich through the poverty of Jesus, we sacrifice our rights, time, energy and resources for the poor, the stranger and the suffering.
“Indeed, the one who was from the beginning with God and who was God revealed himself as a small, helpless child; as a refugee in Egypt; as an obedient adolescent and inconspicuous adult: as a penitent disciple of the Baptizer; as a preacher from Galilee, followed by some simple fishermen; as a man who ate with sinners and talked with strangers; as an outcast, a criminal, a threat to his people. He moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy. The whole life of Jesus of Nazareth was a life in which all upward mobility was resisted…The divine way is indeed the downward way.” – Henri Nouwen
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