__largepreview__.webp)
We believe that God wants to work in you. If God has His hand in your life, we believe that God knows better than we do and we will trust the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you. Our job is to come along side and be a part of what God is already doing.
Before “excellence,” before “professional” and before “polished” we believe that authenticity is most important in our lives. Even though it may cost us, it is better to be real and honest than to put on a front. We do not want ministries or lives to be sloppy, but it is authenticity that will drive us, not perfection.
The purpose of an apple tree is not simply to produce apples, nor another apple tree, but an orchard of fruit bearing apple trees. We believe that Christians are to seek to establish intentional relationships with others, hoping to earn the right to be heard. But reproduction does not end with a new Christian commitment; our goal is to bring people to Christ so that they will bring people to Christ (2 Tim. 2:2).
We believe that no matter who you are or what you’ve done you need God. We also believe that deep in your soul you want God. When God gets a hold on any of us, our lives will change: sometimes dramatically, sometimes subtly. No matter how God has grabbed us, we are usable by God to do powerful and amazing things. (John 4 and John 14)
(Luke 24- Emmaus Road): While there are examples of conversions like Paul (all at once, a life is changed) we believe that faith is a journey. We will stumble, grow, misunderstand, fail and succeed. Sometimes we will be faithful and sometimes we will falter but all of these experiences are used by God to make us more, authentic, reproducible, transformed and self-less. No one is a “good Christian.” We are simply a Christian or not, and God is working to complete the good work that He has already begun in us (Phil 1:6).
We believe that we are to look not only to our own needs but also to the needs of others. Our leadership, our ministries, our missions and even our people will grow more and more into the people God wants us to be by continually looking for how we might “prefer the other” over ourselves. We believe that if our church and our people are defined by showing preference to other churches, ministries and people, God will be glorified and our ultimate goal is to give glory to God.
Here at Community, we proclaim the authority and all-sufficiency of God’s Word. That means we believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the ultimate truth and authority to guide a person’s faith and life. And what we mean by ‘Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments’ are those 66 books contained in the Bible that represent the special revelation of God’s truth, intent, wisdom, and will for the past, present, and future of His creation.
As taught in God’s Word, in the beginning, God created men and women in His likeness, to bear His image into the world. Through an act of disobedience, Adam and Eve introduced brokenness into God’s perfect creation. Here at Community, we proclaim that God, to reconcile creation to its Creator, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to perfectly restore what humanity has broken and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus lived, taught, suffered, died, and then defeated the power of death so that our brokenness would be stripped of its power and our restored relationship with our Father would empower us to live as we were created to live.
Here at Community, we proclaim the immediate and complete transformation that comes through a new life that reflects the life shown to us by Jesus Christ. In Christ and through the continual presence of the Holy Spirit, we are a new creation (the old has gone, the new has come), our lives are changed, and we are capable of discerning God’s will and accomplishing amazing things for His glory.
Here at Community, we proclaim that the life that replaces death is complete in Jesus Christ. It is true today in the new person that is created when we receive the gift of His salvation. It is true in body and spirit for all who are God’s chosen for eternity. In His resurrection from the dead, Christ guarantees our resurrection. Just as He rose, bodily, from the grave, so too are all who believe in Him guaranteed a full resurrection to life eternal; Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Him.