We Believe…

…it’s not about what we believe,
it’s about what difference it makes
that we believe.

We didn’t want to publish a statement of belief at first.

Such statements imply that what we believe matters to God’s love, that God’s acceptance is based on intellectual beliefs.

We believe that God doesn’t do or not do love based on any criteria, that God is love itself and can’t be anything other than absolute unity and connection. What we experience in God’s presence is indiscriminate, degreeless acceptance regardless of what we think we believe.

What we believe doesn’t affect God’s love, but it does affect what we think and do, and what we think and do affects our ability to experience God’s love. Statements of belief imply that one belief is true and all others false, creating the perfect environment to treat others without the love that is God’s presence. Truth is always in the love we engage with each other, not in our thoughts. If what we intellectually believe allows us to love everyone we meet as we love ourselves–treat them with decency and respect regardless of feelings or lack of them–then it is “true.” But only if.

We can’t know the really big things in life with any certainty, and ultimately, to believe that a finite human mind could contain an infinite God is illusion. All theology is inaccurate or at least incomplete…but still vitally important…once it becomes personal. When a theology, lived out in the action of faith, becomes personal conviction, it can allow us to accept life on life’s terms and live with a sense of hope and gratitude. Two essential markers of spiritual growth.

We realize that some statement of core beliefs is important for those investigating us as a faith community, and we hope this gives context to the concepts below. But whatever we believe today that makes life meaningful, is always just one trauma away from having to be remade, again and again. Another essential marker of spiritual growth.

About Faith
Faith is not mental belief, but action. Without the risk of acting as if what we say we believe is true, what we say we believe is irrelevant.

Doubt is as necessary to faith as fear is to courage; there is no courage without fear, no faith without doubt.

Faith is not the opposite of doubt, but the ability to act in the presence of doubt.

Our faith must make good common sense before it makes anything else.

About Belief
Jesus and the Bible are foundational for spiritual growth when understood as well as can be reconstructed from the original languages, culture, and worldview.

God can never be understood intellectually–knowing God is learning to love mystery and paradox.

Jesus didn’t give us abstract theology to believe—he taught a concrete Way of living life in God’s presence.

Kingdom is the misunderstood cornerstone of Jesus’ teaching—not heaven, but a quality of life lived herenow in the awareness of love without degree.

Living in fear of punishment has no place in a spirituality built on degreeless love.

Jesus’ Good News is…there is no bad news: we are as loved as we want to be.

About Practice
Living Jesus’ Way is not legal, but relational, not conforming, but transforming–seeing life in a completely different way.

Church should provide the community, accountability, structure, discipline, and service each of us needs to experience our own meaning, purpose, identity.

We can only tell others what we are convinced of, not what to believe—accepting their freedom to become convinced of what they are convinced of.

Debating religious concepts we can’t know with certainty has little value compared to what we do know with certainty—how to treat each other.

While “Christian” has conflicted meaning in our culture, we remain unabashed followers of Jesus.

TRADITIONAL WITHIN NON-TRADITIONAL

We believe viewing the traditional essentials of the Christian faith—the Bible as inspired; one God manifested as Father, Son, and Spirit; the cross and resurrection of Jesus; the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit–from a non-traditional, Hebrew worldview is essential in getting us closer to the original intent of Jesus’ message. Jesus wasn’t trying to create a new religion; he was trying to free the hearts of his followers within the context of the religion they already had. When we return Jesus’ message as preserved in the New Testament to its original language and culture, an amazing shift occurs.

Putting ourselves in the sandals of the first hearers of Jesus’ message, we have become convinced that if we can make the same radical shift in awareness that Jesus called being born again, we can begin a process that focuses not on heaven or hell, but on this moment right here and now. We can see ourselves as we are—in unity with each other and God’s presence.

This Way of living life, this quality of life lived in unity with God and each other is what Jesus called Kingdom. As Jesus said, “The waiting is over. The Kingdom is here.” (Mark 1:15) We have decided to stop waiting and to start living theeffect of God’s love right here and now in each relationship and each moment and person that crosses our paths.

For more of what we believe on specific subjects, see our Articles page: especially the “foundational” articles on love, talimidim, kingdom, law, and scripture, to see how Jesus’ Way plays out in central areas of our spiritual lives.  And for a deeper look, there is The Fifth Way.