Our Approach to Justice

  1. We confess the Church’s complicity in much of current and historic injustice. We do not detach ourselves from the past, but in grace and humility take responsibility for it.
  2. We confess our sin both individually and collectively, including structural and systemic injustice, for unless we take collective responsibility, the ministry of reconciliation simply cannot be advanced.
  3. Our confessing does not lead to paralyzed guilt but to the liberty to act in love.
  4. We believe that social justice starts in the church, and that the way we treat each other directly affects the credibility of our witness before the world.
  5. We seek to practice radical hospitality, inviting those different than ourselves into the very heart of our life together, knowing that this may very well change us.
  6. Since God calls the church to advocate for the oppressed without prejudice – the widows, orphans and aliens in our midst – we will care for our neighbors regardless of their religious affiliation or particular background.
  7. We believe that like the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, we are called to proclaim God’s love and justice beyond the walls of the church, to call to account the powers and principalities and rulers of our age.
  8. Our loyalty is not to any political party or ideology, but to Christ our only Lord whom we follow by the power of his Spirit.
  9. We are mindful not to engage in social justice with a “savior-complex,” nor be anxious that we as one congregation cannot address all problems, since Jesus alone is Savior. We will prayerfully discern how to contribute collaboratively to God’s work throughout the world.
  10. We seek a better way beyond perfectionism and impulsiveness in the way we address urgent matters of justice.

Our Identity:

  • We are a high-risk, low-anxiety church because our hope is in Jesus Christ.
  • We are committed to being honest, transparent and vulnerable with one another, just as Jesus modeled for us.
  • We are committed equally to sound Biblical teaching, to genuine personal transformation, and to sweeping social justice.
  • We are committed to an ecumenical expression of Christian worship rooted in the early church that is equally rational, sacramental and pentecostal, and to being a church that embraces a global, multi-epistemological future.
  • We are a penitently Presbyterian congregation, appreciative of the many gifts that this tradition has offered to the larger church and world, but mindful that denominationalism is itself a sign of the sectarianism, brokenness and disobedience of the body of Christ.

 Our Vision:

  • At Pentecost, a multicultural, multilingual, multinational gathering of people witnessed to the mighty acts of God. Likewise, the kingdom of God is a place where a great multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue will stand before the throne of the Lamb shouting, “Salvation belongs to our God!” The church is the provisional reality of the inbreaking of God’s reign between Pentecost and the coming kingdom.
  • While we recognize the continuing role of the mono-ethnic church in advancing the heavenly kingdom, we also affirm the increasing need for multicultural churches in an increasingly multicultural society to offer hope of racial/cultural/generational reconciliation and healing by living out the gospel of peace. We envision a day when, in the context of a local church, each culture can be affirmed as a gift from God, and each culture challenged of inherent idolatries by a beloved community speaking the truth in love.
  • We proclaim that in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, poor or rich, black or white, young or old, recent or settled immigrants, Catholic or Protestant, for Christ has torn down all human barriers through the power of the cross.
  • In the increasingly multicultural context that is North America, we dare not limit the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to one race, one class, or one culture.

Our Mission:

  • to be a house of prayer for all nations         -Mark 11:17
  • to make disciples of all nations             -Matthew 28:19
  • to bring healing to all nations              -Revelation 22:2
  • to be a witness to all nations                       -Acts 1:8
  • to be a light to all nations                        -Isaiah 42:6
  • to be a blessing to all nations                -Genesis 22:18
  • to bring renewal to all nations         -Colossians 3:10-11

 

…that we may be a church for others, a church of all nations