Our Vision and Mission - Core Values and Bedrock Beliefs

 

We are a group of people who are part of a church, but trying not just to be a "church". We are really trying to be "Church." Do you know what we mean? We are working hard at asking God for help in overcoming the ways for years we have become exclusionary. We are asking God to help us to "let go and let God" which sounds good, but we are still trying to get more clues about what that means for us and the whole bloomin world. We believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, but when we talk about what that means, we find there is a lot of variety among us. And there are some of us who are tired of talking and are just trying to "do it."

 

Commissioning at the end of Sunday worship

 

    Go forth into the world.  Be of good courage.  Hold fast to that which is good.  Render to no     person evil for evil.  Strengthen the fainthearted.  Support the weak.  Help the afflicted.  Honor all people.  Love and serve God rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

Core Values

· learning and growing as disciples of Jesus Christ

· transforming lives through God's grace and forgiveness

· gathering as a community known as "the body of Christ"

· worshiping God using creative expression

· welcoming the variety of people who are our neighbors

· leading spiritually centered lives

 

Bedrock Beliefs

· We believe God creatively gives us life.

· We believe we are called by God to be disciples of God's beloved Jesus Christ

· We believe that God's Spirit is the power that guides us to "go forth into the world."

· We believe that prayerful conversation (which means more listening on our part) is the center piece of the life of a disciple

· We believe that we will never die. God raises us from death through the life, death, and resurrection of God's Son, Jesus Christ.

· We believe it is through forgiveness and grace that God gives us hope that never ends.

 

We use these in our personal lives and as the boundaries of our life as a church and in all the decisions we make about our ministry. The Core Values and Bedrock Beliefs or the "DNA" set the boundaries of our life together. We want them to be clear boundaries, but not restrictive boundaries. We have had such boundaries written down for a long time, but as a community we often ignored them or forgotten about them. Those have been the Purpose, Faith and Covenant articles of our Constitution and the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith.

2095 W. Market Street, Akron, OH 44313

www.fairlwanwest.org  info@fairlawnwest.org  (330) 864-2179