What We Believe

Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us wakes up, each and every single morning, and steps into a particular story. That story includes your own assumptions about who you are, what your purpose is, what the world is like, and where everything is headed. 

Christians believe that the gospel is not simply one story among others that people can choose to live within if it happens to work for them. We believe the gospel is the one true story that answers the most fundamental questions we face each day. 

And what kind of story is it? It is a story at the center of which is a God who is good beyond our imagination, a God who pursues people who are far away from him. This God has sought us out, though we've run far from him, and he has done this through the person and work of Jesus. This is the gospel: that Jesus lived a perfect life, that he died to bring us back to his Father, and that he rose again from the dead so that the end of our story is hope. And by placing our trust in Jesus, we begin to live in the one true story and come alive through the power and kindness of its Author. 

God's mercy is his not giving us what we deserve. Because our hearts turn away from him, we deserve the natural and just result: permanent alienation and separation from him. But God has not left us to the end we deserve. He has pursued us with undeserved kindness and compassion. And the end we deserve, he took upon himself through Jesus' death on the Cross. Looking at our distress, brought on by our own rebellion, God did the opposite of what the world does and what we so often do. He did not hold our sins against us. He showed us mercy. 

And that means our life as Jesus' people should be characterized by the same kind of mercy. Because he has shown us mercy, we must show mercy to one another. As Jesus perfectly proclaimed and embodied God's mercy to the world, so we are to proclaim and embody his mercy to the world. 

“Mercy is God’s darling attribute, which he most delights in.” (Thomas Watson)

Vocation joins together identity and purpose. As God’s people, we are called to be the people he made us to be. And we are called to fulfill the mission he has given us.

Describing "who we are" and “what our purpose is” always begins with who God is, what he has done, and what he is doing now.

Who are we? We are witnesses to a reality that exists before we respond to it. God is king, and his kingdom has come through the person and work of Jesus. Through faith in Jesus, we are witnesses to the glorious truth that God the king has become our loving Father, and he has brought us into the kingdom of his dearly-loved Son.

And what is our purpose? As God’s people, his church, we are called to point to that kingdom reality so the world might hear and see and believe. We are a community of people who are learning to receive God’s gracious rule over us and everything in Jesus. We are a people learning to follow Jesus in his world. And we are people who are learning to point back to Jesus’ kingship through our words, our work, our lives, and our love.

LISTEN

Our calling begins at the feet of Jesus, listening to his voice in the pages of Scripture. We live out our vocation, first of all, by hearing the gospel with hearts open to God’s power. To truly be disciples of Jesus, we must become people who love what he loves, and he most loves his Father’s voice. So, we are to be people who love our Father’s voice, learning to trust and do what he says because he is good and merciful. We listen to God’s voice as we hear and believe the gospel preached, as we enter his presence in prayer, and as we listen to the voices of our brothers and sisters who remind us what is true.

PROCLAIM

As we become people who listen to God, we live out our vocation by proclaiming what we have heard and believed. We are to be people who delight to proclaim what God has accomplished through Jesus, the victory of his mercy. We proclaim the gospel as news, an event that has changed the world and continues to transform lives. We proclaim it to ourselves, to one another, and to our neighbors. We proclaim it in our worship, in our prayers, and in our daily conversations.

EMBODY

God’s love in Jesus is not merely a message that we hear and proclaim. As we hear and believe the gospel, and as we proclaim it as the best news, we begin to embody God’s mercy in the world. Through our union with Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we become people who live within the gospel story. We become people who delight in God’s mercy that we have received, and who delight to display God’s mercy to one another and to our neighbors. We embody God’s mercy as we extend forgiveness, as we show compassion to those in pain and in need, and as we bear each other’s burdens in love.

Through our LISTENING, PROCLAIMING, and EMBODYING, we act as witnesses to his kingdom.