Rituals We Celebrate

"To Know Christ and Make Christ Known

Through Our Love and Hospitality."

To Know Christ

To know Christ in the biblical sense means much more than some rational understanding and acceptance of the person of Jesus of Nazareth who became known and claimed as Christ by the early church.  To know Christ includes something much more than devoting a few brain cells to our lord. To know Christ implies a deeper and more intimate experience and relationship.  The relationship is one that helps us want to make changes.  This intimacy helps us experimentally learn about Christ and the grace offered to His people.  We learn through our engagement with scriptures and with one another as well as the stranger who is welcomed at the open door of our community.  This knowledge of Christ compels us to share the life changing intimacy we have experienced in Christ.  In that experience we hear Christ say “I and the Father are one . . . and we are one together in the Lord.”  As Christ, in this intimacy experience, helps us recognize and respect the Christ within each one of us.  This leads us to the next idea in our vision.

Make Christ Known

As we were taught so now we must teach.  This means that to make Christ known I have to risk relationship and spiritual intimacy with one who begins as a stranger and gradually becomes more deeply known. Here we seek the lost and find those searching; who need to experience the acceptance and love of the Christ. As we make Christ known we may find that we continue to learn more about ourselves and our understanding of Christ as we teach another.

Through our Love

Offer comfort and safety in our midst and provide a place that the worried and frightened can encounter the loving and giving Christ.

And Hospitality

Give of ourselves without asking for anything in return and offer the bread and cup of Christ for any who enter our doors.