BEST NEWS EVER!!!
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BEST NEWS EVER!!! *
God’s good news is always good!
That is why we don’t spend a lot of time judging people or worrying about who may or may not be going to heaven.
We are clear that when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, we are in “sales.” God is in “management,” and God’s management decisions are made out of passionate love. We trust God’s character.
Does this mean that everybody may be saved? That is not ours to judge. We assume that everyone needs to hear the good news of God’s love and grace, and everybody wants the welcome and hospitality that our congregation has to offer! Even our front door displays symbols that invite everyone to Christ without exception, both to the waters of baptism and The Lord’s Table.
If you too believe the good news should stay good due to God’s great love, you will feel comfortable here. Below is more about what we believe.
The word “religion” means literally to “re-connect.” Think of healing torn ligaments. The stresses of daily life can make us feel broken, alienated from other people, and separated from God. Religion is a gift that helps us rebuild the links we feel like we lost.
Unfortunately, religion can also go wrong.
It can make us doubt God’s love, demanding that we prove we deserve it.
Its leaders can manipulate us into believing that unless we support the religion sacrificially, we can’t be saved.
Religion can cause us to break relationships unnecessarily rather than strengthening them.
Religion can insist that we all believe the same thing and live our lives in lock-step with other believers.
Religion can fuel what is worst in humans: hatred, prejudice, cynicism, greed, and the like.
Some people, perhaps having had a bad experience with religion, give up on it. They speak of spirituality as if it is something that can be done solo.
If someone is abusing you, in Christ’s name or for any other “reason,” please leave those circumstances NOW. If your relationship with God has been poisoned by religion, forgive the best you can but move one.
Please understand that authentic Christian faith is not the toxic forms of religion that crush people.
Yet please also understand that Christian faith is not a solo act.
To summarize: As best as “aw shucks” ordinary folks like us can manage, we consistently “deliver” God’s good news to you. It is a core commitment. Nevertheless, that good news often comes embodied as less-than-perfect people, like you and me. This what Jesus demonstrates to all of us. We need each other, and him too. As much as we let him, he provides us with standards for a true way to walk and an authentic life for us to imitate.
Below we briefly explain what we at North Lima mean by Christian faith.
One important understanding to keep in mind as you read: What comes next will sound a lot like doctrines of the church, as if you are compelled to believe them. You are not compelled as a church member to do so, although we still hope you will grasp their importance for you to live the joyful Christian life.
What is critical is our relationship with the God that we know through Jesus Christ! Yet doctrines serve as inspiration for our reflections and even warn us where unseen perils may lie, as lighthouses do on rocky shores.
We believe that all doctrines are like photographs: They are suggestive images, yet not the same as dealing with the Living One to which they point. When you confess faith in Jesus Christ and commit to congregational membership, you are also committing to a lifetime of learning more about the character of the God that these doctrines - these photographs - try to capture.
This next section can be long and frankly, boring. Nevertheless, we feel like our transparency about beliefs are important for you. Remember that we are mystics: We know that there are tremendous mysteries dwelling right next door to our humdrum lives. Because this is the case, we know we must try to demystify other aspects of our faith and make them as accessible to you as possible. Keep the coffee on!
We hope this explanation and our beliefs mentioned below make sense.
Some of the convictions that “root” the “limbs and leaves” of our worship, organizational ethics, and personal moral practices, are presented below. Most of these beliefs are believed accurate by most Christian churches, although the forms by which they express these beliefs may vary.
To change metaphors, as Presbyterians we tend to see ourselves akin to a unique flavor of ice cream in an ice cream store that boasts many flavors. Personally, I think of Presbyterians as Rocky Road: Delicious chocolate, soft-hearted marshmallow, and more than our share of nuts!
(Admittedly, some churches view themselves as the only flavor of ice cream that should ever be sold under any circumstances. If you enjoy a steady diet confined to lime sherbet, they are the type of congregations for you!)
OUR FLAVORFUL FAITH
When we say God is love, we mean
that God is a Three-in-One (Triune) God, a Godhead. Commonsense tells us that there is no love unless there is a relationship, and we believe God to be relational. One God in three persons is a traditional way of saying that the One God is bound together by love. The Trinity’s vibrant, creative dance of love - a dance that overflows as the creation we enjoy - has been pictured over centuries through a variety of images. Below you can see two (and more) that have been passed on to us over the ages. Just click on the “Holy Trinity” links below.
that being in God’s image (as we believe all human beings to be)is to say that being human = all of us being in many types of relationships, from conception through and beyond death, and these relationships form us. Below will be mentioned the organization of human relationships that Jesus envisions, that being the KINGDOM OR REALM OF GOD. In the section of the website entitled “Christian Community In Lima Center,” the concept of the Kingdom or Realm of God will be explored more fully.
that first and foremost, we are in a continuous relationship with God, because God continuously creates us through the Holy Spirit, now and beyond death. “Births us,” is another way of putting it. As a philosopher said about our relationship with God, and the Apostle Paul echoed it, “God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).”
that one member of the Triune God, God the Son, gave up being part of God temporarily to be born as a human being. He was born the Jew Jesus.
that Jesus embodied and proved to us the loving nature of God. God is “for us.” God is not “out to get us;” God is not our adversary. God’s heart breaks in love for us.
that God, being with us as Jesus, taught us how to be human, specifically how to love God and to love all of creation, including the entire human part of it; this is because loving is what relationships are supposed to be.
that Jesus died identifying with the worst among us, as a crucified criminal, to demonstrate that his salvation is for all of us.
that Jesus was raised from the dead through God’s power, conveyed by the Holy Spirit. Therefore we call him the Christ, the most special among us, Lord and Savior
that Jesus the Christ then rejoined the Godhead, giving God a deep understanding of what it means to be human.
YOUR PLACE AT THE TABLE IS READY
To join our congregation, a person only has to
say Jesus is Lord and
commit to be actively involved in the life of our congregation.
Both affirmations have deeper implications.
Starting with the first, saying Jesus is Lord allows us to say also that
Love is Universal Lord of Creation;
We encounter love everywhere, because God’s creativity is everywhere, and we are a beloved outcome of it.
Although we are in relationship with the Risen Christ - with God - just by existing, saying Jesus is Lord signals our conscious ownership of our relationship with God and our desire to mature in that relationship.
To elaborate on this specific point: This coming to consciousness - and then allowing our lives to be transformed by this relationship with God in Jesus Christ - is termed being “born again.” Some frame this moment of consciousness as “being saved;” our Presbyterian understanding of “being saved”is a bit more nuanced. More on this in a moment.
The biblical expression “Born again” is a shockingly misunderstood image.
It may not take a Bible scholar to know the meaning of the phrase intuitively.
Recall how long it took for us to become conscious of having been physically born! Remember also how long it took us to mature sufficiently to become responsible contributing members, first to our families, and then to the rest of the world.
In the same manner, being “born again” occurs PRIOR to our acknowledgement of it and independent of when we make a confession of faith or get baptized. Words and rites are our outward demonstration, in the church and to the world, that we have come to an understanding that we and our households belong to a saving God.
This is why it is ok to baptize the babies of church members based on the vows of their parents, or even the vows of Christians who agree to serve “in locus parentis”: It is God who saves, not the person who finally owns their salvation later in life. It takes time to wake up to the reality of the new, vibrant life in Christ. We are born again prior to having any capability for knowing it or owning it.
The idea of waking up to “being born again” is also a helpful image. Some of us wake up gradually, stretching and yawning; and some of us act as if we have heard an airhorn in our ears, practically throwing us out of bed and into high alertness, our eyes wide open and hearts pounding. The timing for coming to knowledge of our rebirth varies also.
Why not? It makes sense. We are unique and have unique experiences of God’s saving grace, often perceived as lying between one pole of sudden conversion and the other pole of gradual enlightenment. It is all good. You get the picture.
Moving to the second affirmation needed to join our congregation, a person is asked to commit to active involvement in the local church. This means
working with other members to model the Realm of God and
carrying the vision of the Realm into all of our relationships.
For us, “being saved” expresses the growing presence of Jesus Christ in our lives, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It also articulates our efforts to mature in discipleship i.e., growing in our loving relationships in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
Here may be a good moment to pause and give warnings and promises about spiritual growth:
1. For us, spiritual growth means growing into the likeness of Jesus Christ with other people, absorbing his ability to have a passionate love for God and a compassionate love for neighbor. And supporting each other to do so! This may make us seem a bit odd to others, as self-protection and the avoidance of constrictive deep relationships seems to be the new normal in our current culture: We who follow Christ are out of step.
2. Following Christ’s love means that the mature Christian may pass through ambiguous circumstances that spark periods of doubt. Such “dark nights of the soul” are hard but not to be feared. They can lead to leaps of deeper faith: We give up less mature understandings of God to embrace more profound ones.
3. These transitions may feel like a loss of faith, or entry into atheism, which can be quite disconcerting. Nevertheless, the transition only means disbelieving pictures of God that once suited us but are now wholly inadequate. The most memorable biblical figures - Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Ruth, Mary, and even Jesus - passed through moments when they were tempted by despair because God did not act as they expected or even demanded.
4. Greater maturity that discards “false idols” typically results in
renewed hunger for God gifts to be used for new purposes and
increased desire to bear the fruit of the Spirit that enhance relationships and witness to the goodness of our Lord Jesus: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Nevertheless, during such seasons, as we move from shadow, to shade, to light, we need the support of a faithful community.
Above is a more contemporary symbol of the three-fold, dynamic nature of the One God. It has a name: perichoresis, meaning rotating movement. In our Bibles, God says “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” No symbol, picture, or words can wholly capture the God Who Is and approaches us in Jesus Christ.
To become aware of being born the first time is a great thing. Better yet is to wake up to an awareness of being born again. Twice-born is special indeed. John 3:1-22
