Who We Are

We are a church family called in love to share in and be shaped by Christ Our Hope.

  calling  
commitments
core practices
beliefs

Calling

We are a church family called in love to share in and be shaped by Christ our Hope.
As Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God lives in an eternal fellowship of love.  In short, God is love.  In overflowing love, God the Father calls us, in the Son and by his Spirit, to be adopted children in his family. Together as as adopted brothers and sisters we are called to share in Jesus' loving relationship with the Father and to share in all the benefits of this eternal relationship.  As we abide in this loving relationship we are shaped in the image of Jesus Christ to be faithful and obedient children bearing witness to God's love in the world.

Romans 1:1-7, Ephesians 1:3-5, Romans 8:28-29, Galatians 4:4-7, Ephesians 2:17-22, John 14:20-21

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Our Commitments

These commitments are relational intentions which distinguish the family of God as we enter in and respond to our calling.

Prayer

Because God in Christ shares his life of love with us, we are committed to continuously remain in his love.

Prayer is being with God who is always with us. This means that prayer is not merely an occasional act, but rather a way of life. As a church family we are committed to embracing this prayerful way of life together. Prayer is our first commitment as a church family, because it is the primary means by which we embrace our calling and it is the posture in which we seek to move forward in all of our commitments.

Wisdom

Because God in Christ shares his life of love with us, we are committed to cherish and discern the truth in love.

To know and embrace truth we must seek the wisdom of God. True wisdom is found in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the truth. To share in Christ is to share in his wisdom. As we abide in loving relationship with him we are shaped into the kind of family that cherishes and discerns the truth in love. As such we are committed to live life well, relating to God, our neighbor and all of creation in truth and love. Our authoritative Word of Jesus for living well in the world is Holy Scripture.

Matthew 6:5-13, John 15:5, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Ephesians 6:18

Proverbs 2, Proverbs 8, John 16:13-14, Colossians 2:1-3, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, James 3:13-18

Compassion

Because God in Christ shares his life of love with us, we are committed to move toward the poor, the marginalized, and the broken in love.

Because God in Christ shares his life of love with us, we are committed to move toward the poor, the marginalized, and the broken in love. As a church family we are committed to love because God first loved us. Compassion is love in action. It is the concrete expression of children who are abiding in God‟s love prayerfully and seeking to walk in his way of wisdom. God has called us to move towards others in love, and in particular to move towards the poor, marginalized and broken. This move toward the poor, marginalized and broken entails sacrificial solidarity as it is a call to suffer with them. As a church family we are committed to compassion both locally and globally.

Reconciliation

Because God in Christ shares his life of love with us, we are committed to pursue relationships defined by repentance and forgiveness for the sake of love.

God has reconciled us to right relationship with himself in and through Jesus. We are no longer strangers and aliens, but adopted children in the household of God. As adopted children we are joined to a family of brothers and sisters in Christ. It is not our gender, our age, our class or our ethnicity that most fundamentally defines who we are, but rather our identity in Christ, which is shared together. As a result, we are committed to unity in Christ. This unity is none the less marked by genuine diversity. Thus, a pursuit of unity demands a commitment to reconciliation. As a church family we are committed to move toward one another in love by embracing the relational virtues of forgiveness and repentance.

Matthew 25:35, Luke 4:18, Luke 14:12-24, Philippians 2:5-8, James 1:27, James 2:1-7, 1 John 4:7-21

Matthew 6:12, Romans 5:10-11, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Ephesians 2:11-22, Galatians 3:26-29

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Core Practices

Worship

Worship is the means by which the family of God gathers in the presence of the Father, where he speaks to us in his Word and by his Spirit, and we glorify him through songs and prayers.

Baptism

Baptism is the means by which the members of God’s family are identified with God’s family; the water is a symbol of our being bathed by the Spirit, washed of all our sins, and given new identities in Christ.

Communion

Communion is the means by which the members of God’s family are fed; the elements of bread and wine are symbols of being nourished with the life of Christ himself.

Exodus 20:1-11; Psalm 29:2; 66:4; 86:9; Matthew 28:17; John 4:20-24; Romans 12:1-2; Hebrews 12:28; Revelation 4 & 5

Matthew 28:19; Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-29; Colossians 2:11-15; Titus 3:4-7; 1 Peter 3:21

Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20; John 6:53-58; 1 Corinthians 10:16-22; 11:17-34

Fellowship

Fellowship is the means by which we share in the life of God’s family; in it we learn to love one another through humble service and habitual sacrifice.

Witness

Witness is the means by which the family of God relates to the world outside us; through verbal proclamation and visible demonstration we invite others to share in our hope.

John 13:34-35; Romans 12:10; 13:8; Galatians 5:13; Hebrews 10:24; 1 Peter 4:8; 1 John 1:1-10; 3:11, 27; 4:7-12

Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; Acts 1:8; Galatians 6:10

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Beliefs

We believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, without error in the original manuscripts and authoritative for daily living  We believe that there is one God, eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His substitutionary death for our sins and His bodily resurrection from the grave. We believe that all people are sinners by nature and by practice, are sentenced to eternal separation from God and are in need of personal regeneration by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have so trusted Christ as their Savior are indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God and enabled to live godly lives through submission to Him and dependence on Him. We believe in the imminent return of Christ, and in resurrection of both the saved and the lost, the saved unto eternal life and the lost unto eternal judgment.  It is our sincere desire and prayer that you may experience the assurance of forgiveness and eternal life that comes to those who have trusted the Savior.
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Statement of Faith

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