VALUES / BELIEFS
VALUES - The Feast has four main values which we try to live out in everything we do.
DIALOGUE
One understands the truth best in conversation and the truth has nothing to fear from investigation.
A "Theology Chat" were a group discusses the things that makes faith difficult.
FAMILY
Not everyone who follows Jesus comes from a family, but everyone who follows Jesus is a cherished part of His family.
After another successful apartment move, showing off our muscles.
GENEROSITY
One following Jesus gives lavishly of one’s time, resources, and life because Jesus has given lavishly to us.
Volunteers taking time to invest in kids.
TRAJECTORY
One’s life comes from somewhere and is going somewhere, so one must make decisions in light of their past and future.
Waiting for worship and a lesson about how to grow in Christ.
BELIEFS
We believe these are the basics of God’s story and our story as his people:
God is loving, gracious, compassionate, and slow to anger. In God’s love, God created the universe and all that is in it and continues to sustain its existence. In particular, God created humankind in God’s own image, both male and female. Instead of dwelling in God’s love, humanity chose to go its own way. This rebellion against God’s love is called sin and sin’s most devastating effect is that it separates humanity from God. Throughout history God has called humanity back into relationship, particularly through the work of the Jewish patriarchs, prophets, and poets. The culmination of God’s work in calling humanity back into relationship was the sending of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is somehow, mysteriously, fully the God who created all things yet also fully a human like all of us. By his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension Jesus took the torn relationship between humanity and God and made it whole again. Now Jesus commissions all people to follow him and join in his work, making whole all things which were brought into ruin by sin. The church is the body of Jesus today, doing Jesus’ work in Jesus’ ways in response to Jesus’ love. God’s Holy Spirit empowers the church to go about the continuation of Jesus’ work in our world. One day, Jesus will return and all things will be made right. Creation will again be as God intended, evil will be punished and put away permanently, and God’s people will live in justice and peace.
Such a short paragraph cannot fully contain all the nuance and beauty of the story of God and humanity. We offer this merely to help those considering our church from afar to see some of our basic beliefs, without relying on bullet points or lists. As a church we have no formal creed or belief statement, because in the end we find such things oversimplify God’s word to us for the sake of easily categorizing churches and people. Easy categorization too easily becomes a caricature. The Bible is the authority for us in all things and we are leery of replacing the fullness of the Scriptures with simplistic creedal statements. We trust that the Holy Spirit guides us as a church to properly understand the Scriptures in a way that is relevant to modern life while also holding firm to the unchanging truth of God’s will for humanity. While we love the Bible it is Jesus who is the true “Word of God.”
We also acknowledge that no two people at The Feast Church will believe all of the exact same things or value the exact same things equally. It is important to acknowledge and honor those differences of opinion amongst us, while also holding firmly to the essential teachings of Jesus and the Scriptures. Living like Jesus means boldly proclaiming the weightier matters of faith (like the identity and work of Jesus) while also being gracious and humble on less weighty issues, particularly those that too often create fissures in the body of Christ.
If you are new and are looking for a particular piece of information (ie "What is your position on ___________?") we encourage you to come visit us and talk to someone in leadership about the issue that is important to you. You can also e-mail our leadership in the contact section with a question, and we will answer it to the best of our ability.