Thanks for stopping by. Since you never get a second chance to make a first impression, we want to take this opportunity to direct your attention to the most important thing that we believe. If there's only one 'take away' you get from visiting our site - one message, one overriding imperative that we believe wholly and seek to live boldly, we hope it is this:

God is love. 

We believe, with all our hearts that the Creator of the Universe is a God of infinite, extraordinary, compassionate, everlasting, unfathomable, indescribable love. His mercy, the Bible says, is “new every morning...” (Lamentations 3:23-24) In other words – it is always there, always available, always close - not just for a few lucky ones, but for whoever decides to receive it.

God loves. That’s it! Period. He loves. That is what He does. All day. Every day. Forever. It is His breath. His nature. His essence.

Who does He love?

Everyone. Absolutely everyone. No holds barred. No fine print.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Baptists, Atheists, botanists. Democrats, Communists, Canadians, secretaries. Lindsay Lohan, Pat Robertson, the guy from the Verizon commercials, your ex (generally speaking). The life-all-together, the life-all-messed-up. Me. You. Her. Him. Us. Them. Everyone. From Mother Theresa to Mohamar Khadaffi, God loves us all.

This is what we fully believe and, though we fail, it is what we attempt to live out every day. We seek to live our lives remembering that God loves everyone, and that His love stands as a call for us to love everyone in the same way... to recognize that every individual, even those we may adamantly disagree with (or who may adamantly disagree with us) is made in the image of God and is worthy of dignity and respect.

We are saddened that so many today seem to think that people who have a firm belief in the God of the Bible, and in Jesus His Son, are angry, intolerant, nasty people who view God primarily as a God of anger, vengeance and punishment. We recognize that evangelical Christians often fail to be balanced and loving in their communication about our beliefs, which is why we wanted this on our site. We also recognize that many times, secularists who are very opposed to the idea of God, like to focus on extremes within the evangelical movement (and other faith movements) and present a stereotype – a caricature – that reinforces this negative and often distorted view. We choose to forgive and love them, but long for a more civilized, honest dialogue.

Now, because we believe God is Love doesn’t mean that this is all we believe about God. It is our beginning point and our end point, but there is a lot in between. We believe that because God is love, He has given principles - guidelines to live by - which are meant for the good of humanity and the good of the planet... universal principles which, when applied, yield the best possible results for the individuals and communities who abide by them. In the same way a loving, caring parent gives rules to children which are for their own good – rules for their safety, their protection, their well being, their advancement – we believe God has rules for us, which, when lived out, create the optimum human experience.

We’ll be the first to say that we don’t believe we fully understand nor have perfect knowledge of all the ‘rules’. We also really understand that life today is complex and nuanced, and sometimes, especially at first glance, these guidelines can seem too black and white for our modern world. However, the reason we still choose to live by these rules is that, through a persistent grappling with Scripture, we have come to see that the Bible is the most relevant book in the world. And so, we work every day to understand a better way to live and love and follow what we understand God’s precepts to be.

...not that we live them out perfectly. In fact, quite the opposite, we are very much aware of our weaknesses and the challenges the moment we try to live out “better” ways and be our “better” selves. The Apostle Paul talked about this when he said that the very things he didn’t want to do, he ended up doing, while the things he did want to do eluded him (Romans 7:19).

We know that feeling often, and so we receive grace and forgiveness from God and from one another, along with encouragement to keep going, with a belief that it is better to shoot for the stars and hit the moon, than not to try at all.

Our faith community deals with a lot of challenging topics, mostly because we live in a very challenging world, and to be a person of real faith and substance today means to be engaged in a challenging debate. The world is changing more rapidly than ever, and the stakes are higher than ever before. The environment, nuclear weapons, terrorism, religious conflict, disease epidemics – it’s a very unstable and scary moment to be alive. To keep a faith perspective in this hostile climate is not easy – especially when there are some very “militant” secularists who seem tolerant of any worldview other than one that is a traditional Judeo-Christian worldview.

So…

We are, unashamedly, believers in the God of love, who has demonstrated his love for us through His Son Jesus, and we are trying to live out the principles we find in the Bible and in the lives of those who have followed this path throughout the centuries. We recognize that there are many good people who do not believe what we do, and we want to treat them with honor, kindness and camaraderie. We believe, often, that we can learn much from people whose backgrounds and traditions are different from our own. And we hope that they feel the same way about us.

Thanks so much for stopping by. We hope you’re touched by the love of God today!