In the heart of this community of faith,
we believe in God and God’s desire to be close to us through the life and teachings of Jesus and through the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit.

We embrace...
that love and care of God for God’s people through our work with children and persons who are vulnerable, through our worship, through our service and in our efforts to love our neighbors and our enemies.

We believe...
Jesus when he reminded us to be in this world but not of it, and that the Kingdoms that humankind build are temporary, at best – and often destructive. So we live in culture but stand in tension with culture when it doesn’t address the needs of children, of people whose lives are broken and whose health is compromised because of resources that are horded by the few. We oppose all unprovoked war, and though we believe in defense, we believe its power is reserved as a case of last resort.

We believe...
in a radical Jesus that saw women as equals and saw children as precious gifts of heaven.

We believe...
that urban children deserve the same security and life experience as children who have the gifts of privilege.

We value relationships
that include cross racial, gay and straight alike.

Our hope and trust is in the Bible...
embracing it as the inspired Word of God. We understand that it is God’s story and we are a part of that story, but we don’t limit our understanding of God to only that which is in the Bible. What God says to us in our prayer life and teaches us through our experience of God is valuable, too.

There are parts of tradition that we challenge and there are parts of tradition that we embrace.

Evidence is strong that sin exists and the power of evil is real.
The personal and communal destruction that sin inflicts is real. But we also recognize and believe that God’s grace is real and has tremendous transformational power, as evidenced in the scriptures. “For by grace we are save through faith, not of ourselves,…”

Salvation is more than something that happens after we die.
It is the mystical presence of God’s hope for us being lived out in our lives and is an extension of God’s love demonstrated to us in God’s love of Jesus. It is both belief in who God is and a desire to live as someone who is following the teachings of a radical, embracing and challenging Jesus.

There is ownership here...
in the Church’s past sin, and often continuing sin, done in the name of Jesus such as slavery, genocide, hypocrisy, prejudice and the omission of justice and being trumpeters for peace. It means to be faithful is to speak out and act against injustice in the places where we know that it exists.

The mission of the church is at our core
– to feed people who are hungry, to provide clothing to persons who are living on the street and in shelters, boarding houses, and to those who are economically challenged or experiencing recovery. We embrace persons with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses that deeply affect the body and the spirit. Persons who are mentally challenged are a part of the embrace of our community as well as those who have physical limitations.

We believe...
that God is bigger than the church and that God is always active even when the Church is sleeping, wrong or self-consumed. If the types of people Jesus liked being with come to journey with us, we will welcome them, too. There is equality in all of God’s children and we embrace the reality of our God given diversity. Every person is called to serve God according to their gifts, passions and their capacities.

We treat faith as a journey that we are on; not as a guilt trip.
Instead of bashing people with the Bible, the journey is more of a “come and see Jesus” experience and we trust that you and Jesus will find each other here.

There is a high value on open-mindedness...
the asking of questions, dialogue and critical thinking, and the embracing of the paradoxes of faith.

Belongings are not our possessions...
they are our relationships, who belongs to us and who we belong to.