Our Belief
In reality, there are a lot of things we believe. But there’s one thing that rises above the rest: The Gospel.
The Gospel is foundational to everything we are as individuals and as a church. It’s what the church was built on, the message the Church was given to proclaim, and the power by which the Church was given to proclaim the message.
The Gospel is that God rescues people. He saves us, heals us, restores us. He makes us into a sozo community — a saved, rescued, healed community.
The Gospel doesn’t tell us that we’re in trouble, that we’re just not all that we can be, or that we’re bad. The Gospel tells us we’re dead. Separate, and enslaved. Sin doesn’t make us less, sin is the end of us.
And death is not just a problem to overcome. It’s a reality that only ceases to be a reality when something or someone other than you — and better than you — acts on your behalf.
That’s the condition in which the Gospel finds us. Not struggling, but defeated. Not bad, but dead.
And that’s the condition that the Gospel brings us out of — into full real life. Saved. Rescued. Healed. Restored. So the primary work of the Gospel is not to make us good, but much more than that — to make us alive.
The Gospel is a resurrection story. We were dead, and now we are alive again.
But the Gospel is even much more than that. God isn’t content to make us new, free us from slavery and bring us to life and then just leave us there.
The Gospel’s work is to continually recreate us and shape us until we grow to be like Jesus Himself.
In the Gospel we find our new family, we are adopted — no longer slaves but children, and not simply children but heirs to the King. And in the Gospel, we find our new mission, a new purpose — we are empowered to join with the King in bringing the Kingdom.
God is actively at work renewing His creation. Through the death of Christ, we are made alive, and daily we are invited to join God to bring life to the world.