About Narrative
Some of Our Key Ideas
Emotional/Mental Health
We believe that without proper emotional and mental health, one cannot be completely spiritually healthy.
Love
We believe that peace and love are active practices of the Christian. Jesus exemplified what Paul makes clear, we are to live in peace with those around us, and the first role of the Church is to pray for everyone.
Transformation
We believe that a human is never static, but always transforming in some way. That transformation is best found when it occurs in direct contact with others.
Vision and Execution
The vision:
“To be a living, breathing gospel narrative.”
To make this happen, we believe that we live in participatory community.
We participate in life receiving community with God.
We participate in life sharing community with the church.
We participate in life giving community with the world.
This participatory community does not just involve supporting others as we can, but being vulnerably dependent on others as we have need–allowing community to come full circle.
In living out this communal circle, we follow in the lesson of Jesus’ life, that the gospel is an enacted message.
And it is to his Church he has entrusted the continuation of this dynamic narrative.
As we live out this narrative, our prayer is that–more than just having fun with us, hearing a good sermon, or singing with some moving worship–one will say that they see Jesus here.
Peace & prayers,
Jason Barrett
Some of Our Beliefs
God
God is eternal, existing outside of time and space as we can perceive it, yet he is intimately tied to everything as he is existence itself. Thus, it is by lending of himself that everything exists and is sustained. And it is into this lending space that God entered into reality, time and space, through Jesus. The Son came to live such an exemplary life that even those who do not embrace Christianity can often embrace his teaching. In his death, Jesus defeated the powers of evil. He has now left this earth and in his place the Holy Spirit is presently at work.
Faith
Faith is this thing that isn't always easy. It might be described as a terrifying leap into a transcendent relationship with God. It is a relationship that can make sense at times, and at other times it can seem you are white knuckling it to hang on and make it through with barely a thread of faith left. But at the end of the day, we carry on in faith because God works with what we know, feel, and experience to enrapture our soul and our imagination with the vision of where our faith will take us, and it is worth it.
Scripture
Scripture is the time proven authority for God's people. Through Scripture we discover an entire history of people who have sought God, encountered God, and wrestled with God. For all the arguing that has gone on over Scripture, is still going on, and will go on, Scripture continually causes people to talk about God, think about God, and come to know God.
Salvation
Salvation is spoken of in different ways. One of the greatest ways it might be spoken of is the act of being saved from living another day without being in relationship with God. To think that there is a creator of all we see, one who has set life to spring forth time and again despite death's continual attempt to win, one who can be experienced and who seeks to make himself known, to think of that, it is salvation to not live another day without a connection to God.
To hear more about our ideas and beliefs, you can check out our blog here where we try to regularly blog about any number of things we find noteworthy to think on.