We’ll get it wrong and have to change directions. We’ll hurt each other and we’ll screw up. But we know God is God and we’re not, and so we live together with humility. We repent regularly. We freely ask for (and give) forgiveness. We value vulnerability as a strength and not a liability. We collaborate, because we know our way likely isn’t the best way, and that a life together marked by humble graciousness is beautiful. We submit to one another, serve one another, and love each other. There’s room to both celebrate and lament. We’re certain about what we’re certain about (ie., the creeds), but we approach the rest with “epistemological humility,” while prioritizing both the “one another’s” of scripture. We’re firm where we need to be firm, and gentle everywhere else. There’s an element of messiness to our life together that is both real and beautiful.
We invite anyone and everyone into community and towards Jesus. Hospitality is a top priority, and there is ALWAYS room for more. In a culture that is both exceptionally busy and exceptionally lonely, we want to be a people marked by openness. We invite people in to our homes, our lives, and our church. Our life together is marked by warmth and openness and invitation. We intentionally make space for people, and strive to be an “inter” church, rather than a “multi” church — we don’t just want to be multi-generational, or multi-cultural, or multi- ethnic, but inter-generational, inter-cultural, and inter-ethnic, where all sorts of people and life stages are drawn into the life of the body, and given opportunities to use their gifts. We are better this way, even (and perhaps especially) when it makes us uncomfortable.
Jesus’s ministry happened at 3mph, and yet so often our spiritual lives race ahead at 70. In a fast-paced region that prioritizes influence and production and speed, we want to prioritize relationships and proximity. We practice rhythms of work and rest, fasting and feasting. We’re okay pausing. We move at a pace that fosters friendships and attentiveness, that is unhurried and at ease — the pace of “being known.”
God’s generosity towards us is extravagant — we call it grace. In response, we want our life together to be marked by open-handedness: generous and others- focused. We want to be the sort of church that freely gives our best away, that makes room for developing leaders (and is committed to growing gifts and abilities from within), and is persistently collaborative. In our open-handedness we’ll take risks and start new things and plant new churches, we’ll develop leaders and share responsibility and we’ll give freely and consistently. We believe “everybody plays” — that the Christian life and Christian community isn’t a spectator sport — and that everyone ought to play at the appropriate rate for his or her spiritual growth. We bring others along with us, and actively steward our spiritual gifts for the sake of the mission of God.
The way we do life together will be marked by simplicity. Our lives have enough complexity and complication, as it is, and Jesus himself said that “his yoke is easy and burden is light.” As Eugene Peterson puts it, Jesus’s way is all about the “unforced rhythms of grace.” And so our rhythms will be reproducible, relaxed, and at ease. We value clarity and straightforwardness. We want our life together to feel “lived in,” with plenty room for people in all different places in their spiritual journey, with a sense of, “Oh! I could do that” to how we walk together. Our life together ought not be intimidating.
In a world of cynicism, we value wonder and delight. Jesus loved a party. He loved a feast. And His Spirit is a giver of joy (Romans 14:17). Not only that, but the Gospel is Good News! Because of this, our life together ought to be marked by joy, fun, celebration, wonder, delight, and laughter. We work at being a people who take Jesus seriously and don’t take ourselves too seriously, acknowledging the temptation to do the opposite. We don’t ignore or write off the pain in this world and in our lives — we believe true joy comes on the other side of true lament — but we also believe that because of Jesus, the very real sorrows of this world have context, and so we can “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thes. 5:16).