LIGHT & LIFE & LOVE
We believe that the Bible is a unified story which leads us to Jesus, and we believe Jesus is the one who leads us to God. “You loved me,” said Jesus of the Father, “before the foundation of the world (John 17:24).” When we submit to seeing God through Jesus, then we realize that before the world began, God was a Father loving his Son. When we say, “God is Love” we mean God exists as Lover, Beloved, and Love. We believe that God exists as the Trinity and follow St. Augustine’s analogy of Love to help us understand this mystery. As in all relationships of love, there is a Lover, a Beloved, and the Love shared between the Lover and the Beloved. So in God, the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son. Ultimately, we believe that God is a being of love who is always and forever pouring fourth light and life and love.
“LET THERE BE”
We believe God created all things by the overflow of the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Love exploded in the song of creation, “Let there be”, from the Father, through the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The love of God brought into existence all that we know of as the universe in which we live – all things visible and invisible.
GOD’S HOME IS WITH US
We believe the significance of Genesis 1 is that God created the heavens and the earth as his Temple, his dwelling place, and Humans as his Image Bearers. We believe the best we can do in understanding the metaphysical universe is to humbly seek to think God’s thoughts after him, and that in so doing, we will learn incredible things about the universe in which we live.
IMAGE BEARERS
We believe, as God's image bearers, that humanity was created in order to reign alongside God and expand his glory to the ends of creation. We do this by worshipping him and reflecting his glory back to him and refracting his glory out into the world.
BROKEN LOVERS
We believe humanity as a whole, created out of the love of God and for the love of God, have turned this love in on themselves. This hoarding of the power of God’s creative love has caused us to suffer from the sin of idolatry, making ourselves God. The idolatry of humanity has brought corruption and decay, not only to the very core of our existence, but also to the foundations of creation itself.
ALL THINGS NEW
We believe that as a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the one who is always pouring forth light, and life, and love – that God’s love is directed at renewing all of creation, the Heavens and the Earth, his dwelling place, and humans especially, his image bearers.
RESCUE
We believe that God has done this in and through Jesus, the one in whom, by whom, and for whom all things have been created. We believe that God’s plan of rescue went into action through Jesus’ death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead three days later. God’s New Creation movement began in that moment.
PLACES OF HEAVEN
We believe that those who believe in the good news of God revealed in Jesus, and confess with their mouth that he is the Lord of their life become people of God’s New Creation. Followers of Jesus are places where Heaven and Earth overlap and intersect, and are small Temples where God makes his home.
EXPANSION
We believe that God’s ultimate plan of rescue comes through followers of Jesus expanding this New Creation in their worship of God and love of others. Followers of Jesus find that God’s creative love has been restored within them, transforming their capacity to love, and like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, followers of Jesus find that they too have the capacity to pour forth life and light and love.
COMMUNITY
We believe that the transformative power of God’s love is to be nurtured and intentionally formed according to the image of Jesus. We believe this intentional process of Spiritual Formation should take place in a community of Jesus followers. A community of Jesus followers is a place of New Creation, a place where Heaven and Earth overlap and intersect, a place where God dwells. These New Creation communities, we believe, are the Church. The unity of the Church across the globe is what causes God’s glory to fill the Earth as the waters cover the sea.
THE BIBLE
We believe the Bible, in its completed form, is an ancient library of God's movements to redeem all of Creation, and Humanity as his image bearers. We believe the Church is formed into the likeness of Jesus by the Christian Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments. The process of formation into the likeness of Jesus is most transformative when the Christian Scriptures are studied in community and in combination with prayer. The Bible was written over 1500 years, by multiple authors, and in multiple languages. Therefore, as ancient literature, we believe the Bible’s meaning is best understood when the genre, literary, cultural, and historical contexts are taken into account. The goal of studying the Bible is to pursue an understanding of the author’s intended message to their intended audience, then to contextualize that message to our culture and community. Meaning, then, should be pursued in community. It is this wise pursuit through prayer, study, and community that the Bible becomes a means through which the Holy Spirit forms us into the likeness of Jesus.
ALL THINGS NEW
We believe the ultimate goal of God is to renew all of creation. This will happen when the Heavens and the Earth are remade. At this time, all of humanity will be raised from the dead – some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who will be raised to everlasting life will be those who have already tasted the fruit of New Creation – the followers of Jesus. The creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth will follow the pattern of the original and all of the Heavens and the Earth, newly made, will be the dwelling place of God. In the New Heavens and the New Earth, all who are raised will exist in the fulness of the Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.