Values

The Journey

We find ourselves in the Story of God. This story is a process, not a destination – and it is not to be undertaken alone. Life is full of questions and doubts. We want to walk with the curious, the skeptic, the doubter, the questioner, the desperate, the searcher – all those in need of grace and love.

Face to Face

The church is not a building we go to. We are the church. So when we invite people to church we are inviting others into our lives. Life is best lived face to face. We value honest, grace-filled connection with others who are seeking to find hope in Jesus. One cannot consume community. One enters into it by serving one another. No perfect people are allowed. We are all in need of renewal and a grace-filled connection with others who are seeking hope in the God of the universe.

Radical Compassion

We know if we have everything and can do anything, but fail to possess love and compassion we are bankrupt. Servanthood and sacrifice are foundational –the DNA of our lives – because of the model of Jesus who was willing to be a sacrifice for others. Being a follower of Jesus is a fight for the bottom. We want to be like Jesus and compassionately serve a world that is broken and has lost its way. We are here to serve our communities. We become the other for the sake of the other. We desire to ask the communities in which we live, work and play, “How can we help?”

Pervasive Authenticity

We believe that we are renewed when we are first willing to be honest with God and others. Life is full of questions and doubts. Sometimes it is better to question the answers than it is to answer the questions. We value the unconvinced explorer and the courageous questioner.

Justice for All

God is a God of love, but he is also a God of justice. Therefore, we will participate in the hard work to seek out rightness and truth through fair treatment of individuals and systems that are unjust in the name of Jesus.

Participation

As followers of Jesus, we believe that we are not called to be spectators, but participants. We all have a role to play. Therefore, we want to see what God is doing and join Him in it throughout the week, not just for an hour and a half on Sunday. We seek to de-emphasize Sunday in order to re-emphasize our call to be Jesus-ish Monday through Saturday.

Continual Change

Change is a non-negotiable. Change is in the DNA of God. Transformation is his ultimate goal for his people. While we center around the redemptive, renewing Story of God and Man we believe that how that story is expressed should be constantly changing. Our methods, thoughts and approaches should always be changing to match the context of the culture and communities we seek to serve. Therefore, we believe that our structure should always submit to Spirit.

Reproducibility/Multiplication

One of our vital signs of health is not numeric growth on a Sunday morning service, but reproduction and multiplication in big and small ways. We would rather grow slowly by new people embracing and entering into the life of Jesus rather than grow quickly by transfer growth. We want to be known more for our sending capacity than our seating capacity. We desire to be a church planting church plant, believing we need to plant a church within the first five years of our church’s existence. On smaller levels, we desire to reproduce organically by multiplying smaller groups – and more specifically – house churches.

Oikos

Oikos is the Greek word translated as family, sphere of influence or relationships.
Most people come to embrace and live out the way of Jesus because of relationships with others. Therefore, we take our oikos – our spheres of influence, connections, networks, relationships with those spiritually disconnected – very seriously. We see our vocation as being sacred. We believe that people will become followers of Jesus through our intentional time, efforts, energy, love, prayer, faith and live with them.