CORE BELIEFS

• We believe God is inherently communal, revealed to us in the Trinity of God, Jesus, and Spirit.

• We believe the Bible is inspired and instructive for matters of Christian living and that the best lens of interpretation is through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

• We believe that the best for our world is brought about when we work to replace systems of domination, oppression, and exploitation with the bold resurrection way of Jesus.

• We believe the local church is an active part of the larger Church Universal, and is called to expand the kin-dom of God here and now.

• We believe God calls members of the body to serve and lead based on gifting and celebrates our diversity, including age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and ability. 

THEOLOGY WE LOVE

Here is a short list of theological ideas or themes that inform our practice, our preaching, and our culture:

• Incarnation & Embodiment: We take hope in the idea that Christ was both fully divine and fully human, that the Divine became embodied and shows solidarity, acceptance, and love for humanity in all its messiness and frailty as well as its strength and beauty. We believe that bodies are good, and embrace a theology of the body that affirms the sacredness of every human body. We understand the work of Christ to be borne out in the welcome, wholeness, and health of human bodies.

• Beauty: We think the story of God interacting with humans is beautiful. The work that Christ did, which we now participate in, is beautiful work. Bringing the world into wholeness and health is beautiful progress. We cling to the beauty of Christ. And when we’re lost, we tend to look for beauty to guide us forward; what is the beautiful way? What are the beautiful actions? We believe God creates and appreciates beauty, which can be found all around us and within us, so we seek to create, appreciate, and perpetuate beauty. We don’t mean some cheap, surface-level, exterior appearance of beauty. We mean a deep beauty as a reflection of God in the world.

• Imago Dei: We believe that every human being is made in the image of God, the imago dei. That humanity is inherently good at its core and in its Divine DNA. Because of this, we are empowered to listen to the Spirit of God within us. The imago dei also helps us to see the Divine spark in each other, to love and care for one another, and to work for the good of all. 

• Oneness: We are all connected in the web of life. In the hours before his crucifixion, Christ prayed for us, that we would be ONE, unified in love and in the heart of God (John 17). We believe in our Divine connection with God, each other and the earth. Because none of us are free until all of us are free, Oneness is a part of our Resurrection work (the work of new life).

• Liberation: We believe in the work of Liberation as an essential part of the work of new life and Resurrection. Liberation Theology emphasizes concern for the poor, the sick, the politically marginalized and powerless, and reflects the work of Christ as healer, provider, and resister of empire. Instead of adhering to the religious norms of his time and place, he imagined a better way forward. Embedded in this theological framework is the concept of Oneness – that when those on the margins of society become liberated from domination systems, everyone benefits. 

• Ending Domination Systems: We believe the work of Christ to be antithetical to hierarchies, power systems, and subjugation. Instead Christ “scatters the proud,” “lifts up the lowly”, “brings down rulers from their thrones,” and “exalts the humble.” In the world Christ imagines, no one has a knee on anyone’s neck. 

• The now: We understand good spirituality as an invitation into the present moment, that the only place where we can actively experience the Living God is right here and now. Not in some imagined future or remembered past. We believe the kin-dom of God, the Commonwealth of Heaven, is both already and not yet. Therefore, it is our responsibility as Christ-followers to attend to this truth in the here and now as we actively work to welcome the kin-dom of heaven on earth.