We cannot do anything apart from our Triune God. In humility, we declare our devotion to the Father, depend on Him for wisdom, revelation, and power. We worship Jesus, the Son of God, our resurrected King, with gratitude for what He did for us on the cross. And we live today empowered by the Holy Spirit who breathes life into us and connects us together as the church.

He longs to guide us through this life, and the Bible illuminates the ancient and eternal truths of our faith. Of course, our glorious God will lead us in other ways as well, but never will such direction contradict scripture. His Spirit-breathed Word has been protected and collated throughout the ages for this very purpose.

This means each life carries intrinsic value and worth that we honor. Of all creatures, we humans have the best chance of reflecting His love and care to each other and the rest of creation. Through radical hospitality and uncommon generosity, we are to live as disciples of Jesus in such a way that we bring glory to Him, beauty into this world, order out of chaos, and shalom to each other. To bear His image is not only a statement of human dignity; it is a statement of human responsibility.

This was the prayer Jesus prayed for His followers—that our unity would reflect the same kind of love that flows within the Trinity. Such unity does not mean a bland or homogenized sameness. To the contrary, we celebrate a diversity of backgrounds, ideas, gifts, and passions that bring glorious variety to our community and to our lives. We need each other to fully accomplish God’s mission that we’ve been called to. Standing together at the same cross and drenched in the same grace, we pursue healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation in our relationships—to God, to ourselves, to the world, and to one another.

This is our hope: that God is reconciling all things to Himself, and Jesus has invited us to be part of the plan. As such, we are sent into this world. God’s mission is bigger than just one church or organization, but it is smaller, too. It is a calling for each of us, as followers of Jesus, to be His messengers to our neighbors. This is evangelism: locking arms and sharing God’s good news with our words and with our actions to a world looking for hope. In this way we will champion human flourishing in our city and in our world, in Jesus’ name.