Embody Christ's Love

virtues

Vision Statement:

So that all may be renewed by the message and mercy of Jesus.

Virtues for our Community: What is our Church Like?

The Holy Spirit works within us towards renewal, both indivually and together, leading us to participate in God's work as we live out the virtues below, rooted in scripture.

  1. Hospitality & Generosity – We want to be welcoming to all as Christ is, to share and give beyond measure, to extend grace to others, and to encourage each other to practice this in our daily lives.

  2. Participation & Covenant – We want to value each other and equip one another to use their gifts and talents in service to Jesus. We lift each other up and we encourage everyone to live out their faith actively in their home and their community. 

  3. Obedience & Sabbath – We want to know the Bible, God's Word, and obey all that Christ has commanded us. Part of this obedience is to rest. We rest in God's beauty, care, and in the peace of the Holy Spirit. We want this to be clearly visible in how we live as a community and as individuals.

  4. Mission & Message – We want to join God in bringing goodness, truth, and beauty everywhere, especially among the hurting, the lost, the lonely, and the poor. We want to act and speak as witnesses of Jesus in every aspect of our lives so that those we meet may know the love of Christ.

 

Our Practices:

Our daily habits reveal what we truly love. The daily rituals of virtue (or of vice) that we cultivate are most often happening “under the hood” of our consciousness. There’s a “liturgy” we’re repeating with our daily actions—one that informs our most basic desires and wants.

We can understand these practices as what the Reformers called: “Means of Grace” – To give ourselves to the means by which God gives us grace in our daily lives: Bible reading, prayers, devotions, confession, community, the sacraments.

  1. Scriptures – Preaching, Teaching, and Studying the Word – Making it a regular part of everything we do.

“What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.”  – Martyn Lloyd Jones

  1. Spirit – The Spirit’s presence is essential to everything we do – empowerment for mission, gifts and ministry.

“All outward means of grace, if separate from the spirit of God, cannot profit, or conduce, in any degree, either to the knowledge or love of God. All outward things, unless he work in them and by them, are in vain.” – John Wesley

  1. Sacraments (Worship & Spiritual Disciplines) – We are a Community that regularly worships, celebrates the Lord’s Supper, baptizes new believers, and saturates all we do in prayer.

”Sanctification depends greatly on a diligent use of scriptural means. The “means of grace” are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper. . .  They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul and strengthens the work which He has begun in the inward man.” – J.C. Rylie

  1. Service – Serving together in the church, and on mission together in the world.

“All the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.” – John Calvin