Our view of God comes out of Exodus 3, when God calls Moses and shares clearly who He is.

• “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…”

God reveals His heart and character by sharing that He is a God who sees us, hears us, is concerned about us and gets involved. All four of these realities are essential in our understanding of who God is.

We see this tangibly lived out in Jesus. Through His teaching and His life Jesus shows us how to love and care for others and then invites us to live in very much the same way. In doing so, we become a part of bringing His Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.

In the Gospels, we see Jesus share what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. From these teachings we get an incredible picture of the world He created before sin: one full of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, peace.

Yet, it wasn't simply a future picture of heaven that Jesus wanted us to focus on. He made clear that a part of why He came down to Earth was to begin ushering His Kingdom in the here and now.

When Jesus’ disciples ask Him to give a model of prayer, He responds in Matthew 6 by saying:

• "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Our prayers are for His Kingdom to exist here on Earth. Through our prayers, Jesus invites us to join Him in this work: to be a people and community who seek to bring His Kingdom, His love, His peace, His compassion, His justice, and His mercy in our cities and communities.

We believe Church isn't a building or place, but a community of people gathered together where His radical love, compassion and truth are tangibly displayed through our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God created humanity in His Image and His desire for us was to live in perfect harmony with Him and with one another. Sin entering into this world caused a fracture in both of those relationships.

Yet God had a plan to redeem humanity and bring us back in perfect relationship to Him. This plan involved a sacrifice: the spilling of blood to cover our sins once and for all. Therefore God sent his only Son into this world to dwell among us and give His life as a ransom.

Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, sin and death were defeated and now we can walk in freedom.

In the book of Romans Paul says:

• "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Paul is reminding us that salvation is a gift from God. That there isn't anything we can do to earn it, but a gift that God gives freely to those who believe in His name.

This gift impacts our past, our present and our future in eternity. This gift tells us that we are no longer defined by our mistakes, our brokenness or our sins. Instead He sees us as holy, pure, blameless and calls us His sons and daughters.

The invitation we have is to step into this truth and to live in a manner reflecting what is already true of us.