What We Believe
The Christian tradition and faith is a really big house, with lots of different people inside: Catholics, Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and lots more. There’s a lot of room for variety in the house, and we’re only one small room in it. But we really try to keep the doors and windows wide open.
We believe in Jesus
We do believe that Jesus Christ has a unique and essential message for the world. Jesus asks us to be as committed to justice and love as he is. That's mostly what it means for God's will to be done, as we pray in the Lord's Prayer: "May your kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We also believe that Jesus invites us to have a loving relationship with God, and to let the love flow out of that relationship into all our other relationships.
We are United Methodists
We are part of the United Methodist branch of the Christian tradition. United Methodists are traditionally very committed to service and justice, and also to studying together in small groups. Methodism began with John Wesley, in England in the late eighteenth century, when he got outside the walls of churches to preach and share with working people who had felt left out of the church. Visit the United Methodist Church website to learn more.
The Bible
We believe that the Bible is an important and unique collection of books, and every week the pastor preaches and teaches from the Bible. Because we respect the Bible so much, we don't just take it at face value as if it were a law for us. Instead we find that when we study it carefully, we learn more about how people have understood God at different times through history. That kind of study makes our own relationship with God, and our own understanding of God, deeper and richer.
Justice
The Bible says again and again that God is more interested in justice than in having us all believe the same thing or worship in just the right way. So we believe that a follower of Christ is a person who tries to do what is right in God's eyes.
All the study in the world is not going to give us a good relationship with God. God wants us all to work for justice in the world, and to be active in creating genuine community. We believe that church is a place where we can best practice that. When Jesus talked about the good news, he was mostly talking about how God's will would get done, so that poor people would have enough, and lonely people would be loved. Christians are responsible for modeling God's will everywhere we go.
Find out more
If you're just looking, we respect that. We don't all believe the same thing, and we won't expect you to agree with any simple summary of beliefs, or one way of life. We try to stay more interested in the questions than in the answers. We’re about the journey, and not just the destination.
No brief statement on a web page is going to answer all your questions. If you want to know more about what Christians believe, what United Methodists believe, or what our pastor believes, get in touch with him to sit down and talk. Or try out one of our Bible studies or worship times.