Jesus provided people with a place to be real, even in their lowest moments. We are drawn to this part of the good life because we understand that we all experience low moments – moments of failure, disappointment, uncertainty, and loss.

We know that being real with each other takes guts. We also know that secrecy and hypocrisy are church killers. We are committed to creating a culture of vulnerability that is welcoming, safe, and contagious. We also believe that it is imperative that our shepherds and ministers lead the way by being real, vulnerable, and transparent with the community of faith.

Jesus invited loners, outsiders, and rejects of all kinds to be part of His thriving, welcoming, world changing community. We are drawn to this part of the good life because we know that we cannot do this life alone. We believe that we have a unique opportunity to become one of the most diverse Jesus communities in the world. Within our community, there are rich, poor, old, young, and many in between. We also have families from Korea, Africa, China, England, Mexico, Trinidad, and Texas! We have educated, uneducated, lifelong church goers, brand new Christians as well as agnostics and skeptics.

This diversity can be challenging, but it is far outweighed by its rarity and beauty. We want to embrace the formation of a robust Jesus community by showing people that they are highly valued and extremely gifted. We need everyone and we want people to discover their gifts and put those gifts to work in our church and neighborhood. We believe these gifts will help tear down the barriers that stand in the way and build bridges of reconciliation and partnership for people who have experienced the brokenness, hatred, racism, and division that is prevalent in our world today. Jesus shows us we need each other to experience the good life.

Jesus invited people to start over, change, and grow. He set people on a path to become what God had intended for them to be all along. We are drawn to this part of the good life in Jesus because we do not believe we have arrived or have it all figured out. Our deepest desire is to become more like Jesus every day.

We will experience significant growth in many ways as we become consumed with Jesus and His way. As we learn more about walking with Him, our lives will be dominated by His ways. When this happens, we will experience the blessed transformation that comes with living the good life. We will also experience growth as we learn to be led by the Holy Spirit. This leading will help us incorporate the teachings of the Bible into our 21st century lives.

Jesus is the most influential man to ever live because he rocked our world with His self-sacrificing love. His death on a cross is about much more than just the forgiveness of sins. Through His death, he showed a violent, power hungry world that the good life is found in self-surrendering love.

We are drawn to this part of the good life because we have discovered that some of the ways we lived before we met Jesus have not resulted in the kind of life we had hoped for. We believe Jesus has invited us to join Him in the cruciform way, a life lived in the shape of the cross. We believe embracing a cruciform way of life compels us to consider others better than ourselves, offer unlikely generosity to neighbors, friends, and even enemies, embrace downward mobility, and reject the self-serving habits we had before we began to follow Jesus.