Vision

A few years ago, over many months, across continents, three very different people sensed God giving them a vision of our church…

From those visions has come a vision for what we hope to do here. It can be summed up in three words:form, fill, and flow.

  1. A million things form us: the people we hang around, the TV shows we binge, the podcasts we listen to. Above all else, we want to be formed by the Spirit of God into the way of Jesus.
  2. We believe that inherent to the gospel of Jesus is an invitation to be filled by the here-and-now presence of God: the Holy Spirit. We want to structure our services, small groups, and daily lives so as to keep on being filled (Ephesians 5:18), day after day, again and again, with the love and power of God.
  3. We are captivated by the story of Scripture in which God envisions a family of people, formed by His truth and filled with His love, flowing out to share it with the world. We are rivers, not just reservoirs: we are formed and filled so that we can overflow.

This is where our vision statement comes from. We want to become one family, pursuing the presence of Jesus and the people He loves. You can read more about that below, but in essence, it means we want to be actively intentional with our faith, pursuing God’s presence that will form us into genuine family, fill us as His vessel(s), and flow out of us, moving us to pursue the world He loves.

ONE FAMILY PURSUING THE PRESENCE OF JESUS AND THE PEOPLE HE LOVES

  • One – We believe the body of Christ is meant to be one in mission yet diverse in age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, personality, background, and gifting. So we strive for a “oneness” that looks different than the world, aiming for unity over uniformity (John 17:21; Gal. 3:28)
  • Family – When we become God’s children, we also become family. So we don’t want to just share a room on Sundays; we want to seek out times to share life, share food, share joys, and share burdens. We also use this word to remind ourselves that Biblical families functioned as teams, so becoming family means supporting one another in the common goal of being with Jesus, becoming like Him, and being His hands and feet to the world.
  • Pursuing – This reminds us that life with Jesus takes more than convenient devotion or casual church attendance; it’s a call to active intentionality, a life of pursuit.
  • The presence of Jesus – Jesus ascended into heaven, but He left us with the Holy Spirit. We believe in the here-and-now, living presence of God – the Holy Spirit – and want to prioritize His presence in our individual lives and community gatherings. (John 16:7, John 14:21)
  • …and the people He loves – We will never lock eyes with a person Jesus does not love. So we pursue one another in love, remembering how Jesus said the world would know Him by our love for one another (John 13:35). We also live sent lives, seeing ourselves as daily missionaries pursuing family members … friends … roommates … neighbors … strangers … the poor, the oppressed … with the extravagant love and truth of Jesus.