Mission + Core Convictions

Our Mission (what we aim to do together)

We exist to be a community of Jesus followers striving to love as God has loved as we take the whole gospel, to the whole person, to the whole world.

Our Values (what we prize together)

We long to see the Living God bring spiritual and social vitality to the city of Portland through kingdom-minded churches of worship and justice. 

Our mission drives everything we do and shapes what we invest in and contribute towards. In 2024, this mission has focused us as people to pursue three theological values: encounter, formation, and mission. Each of these values has two accompanying practices. 

Our Vision (what we long to see become true)

  • Theological reality: Trinity

    Every human being is an image bearer of their creator: the Triune God of Scripture. We exist as creatures because of God and, therefore, our deepest need and greatest pursuit in all of life is to know and be known by Him. The gospel makes this possible. 

    Faithful practices:

    • Hear/Obey the Word + Spirit: we submit to the Scriptures and practice the knowledge of the presence of God through prayer. 

    • Celebration: we regularly gather to worship, pray, and eat of the Lord’s Supper as we practice Sabbath rest and remember the grace and gift of God in Christ. 

  • Theological reality: union with Christ

    The purpose of life with God is our transformation into the image of Jesus Christ. We exist to be like him as we follow him and yield to his loving lordship. In our union with Christ, we are incorporated into his body, the church, which remains the primary environment of our transformation. 

    Faithful practices:

    • Hospitality: we see the whole person and engage with others in community by regularly meeting together in smaller groups outside of Sunday.

    • Discipline: we allow the Spirit of God to form our whole person through individual and corporate spiritual practices like prayer, fasting, Bible reading, learning, and solitude/silence.

  • Theological reality: indwelling of the Holy Spirit 

    Life with God is fundamentally about a life that exists for the sake of others, empowered by his animating presence through the Holy Spirit. We do not attempt acts of evangelism, justice, and mercy without the empowering presence of God. 

    Faithful practices:

    • Generosity: we live openly with our time and money, offering all of it to God for his Word + Spirit to redistribute as he desire. The gospel allows us to spend less, give more, and worship fully as we leverage our finances, schedules, skills, and material possessions for others. 

    • Vocation: we commit our singleness, marriages, families, and work (as God gives or withholds these things) to the mission of Jesus. We recognize that all of these things were given to us by God and therefore we return it all to him for the sake fo the world.

Our Theology (what we believe to be true) 

  • Apostles' Creed:

    I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

    I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; 

    He descended to the dead. 

    On the third day He rose again; 

    He ascended into heaven, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He will come to judge the living and the dead. 

    I believe in the Holy Spirit, 

    the holy catholic church, 

    the communion of saints, 

    the forgiveness of sins, 

    the resurrection of the body, 

    and the life everlasting. 

    Amen.

    Nicene Creed

    We Believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. 

    We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into existence, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scripture and ascended to heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge living and dead, of Whose kingdom there will be no end; 

    and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is together worshiped and together glorified, Who spoke through the Prophets; 

    in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. 

    We confess one baptism for the remission of sins; 

    we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

    Amen.

  • “We believe that the Word contained in these books (66 books of the Bible) has proceeded from God, and receives its authority from Him alone, and not from humans. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for people, nor even for angels, to add to it, to take away from it, or to change it. Therefore it follows that no authority, whether of history, or custom, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but, on the contrary, all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them.”

  • Jesus inaugurates the Wedding Feast of God, the joy of the kingdom and the Sabbath rest all creation was made for. We join Jesus through the grace of communal worship and the submission of holy rest, cultivating an experience of gratitude, intimacy with God, celebration with others, and hope in the coming consummation of his kingdom. We gather on Sundays to celebrate through our collective worship. We sing prayers of praise, confess our sins and hear and obey God’s Word.

    It is in our collective worship that we participate in the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and baptism. We come to the Lord’s Supper (Communion or, The Eucharist) weekly to participate in the holy meal of bread and wine that we believe sacramentally and mysteriously gives us Jesus’ broken body and shed blood for our sins. In eating and drinking the bread and wine we testify that Jesus indeed died for our sins in a physical body, and we experience the grace of Christ’s presence in the bread and the cup, through the Holy Spirit as we worship God at the table.

    We participate in baptism, which is the identification with Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. In entering the water, we mysteriously participate in the burial and death of Jesus, and in rising out of the water we participate in His resurrection. Both those in the water and those witnessing the act of baptism mysteriously encounter the Living Christ in this sacrament.

    We also celebrate by keeping the Sabbath holy, receiving it as a gift given to us by our gracious God. This means we set apart a time for rest, ceasing from work, seeking to be present with God and one another, and remembering that this is God's world—He is in control.

  • To read our whole statement of faith, click here.