These are just a few questions that might be popping up in your mind anytime you hear words like "church," "God," "Jesus," "religion," and so on. But the journey with God is not simply in our mind, but in our heart and even more. We might be able to understand some of this journey with our mind, but we will never fully appreciate it through a mental process. "May the peace of God which is beyond our understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus who is Lord." (We realize that titles like "Lord" aren't part of our daily experience even though they were for the folks who first started using such a title. What images or roles could you imagine from today in this vein? What titles convey "someone in charge of everything" for you?. Another instance is the word "kingdom." We know about kingdoms from reading about them in the past, but we don't know about them, especially in the U.S. from experience. So, we might use the word "empire" or "world domination" or there may be something more contemporary that would communicate for you the way a ruler would cover the earth and all creation.)

The journey with Jesus may begin with the mind or the heart. It will take a lot of twists and turns. Often it starts because we are confused or hurting in any number of ways. (Check out the recovery page) In the experience of Jesus many people find a peace that is beyond our ability to fully understand. That then leads them to go further in the journey with Jesus to start training as a disciple or follower or as an apprentice. Discipleship is what being a member of the church means. We also refer to the church as the "body of Christ" where all of us who follow Jesus offer our abilities to grow and nurture as a healing and even a saving presence in the world.  We have found the article by Brian McLaren The Seven Jesuses I Have Known to be very helpful in all the debate today about who is Jesus and can we believe in him.

If anywhere on this page or at any time in your experience of Christ, you may consider becoming a member of Fairlawn-West.

Here is the basic affirmation in the historic roots of the United Church of Christ of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of humanity.

The journey as a follower of Jesus Christ to know and serve God is called Discipleship. This link is for an online course on Discipleship from Cedar Ridge Community Church in Spencerville, MD.

We have tended in some parts of the modern world to discount scripture because it doesn't fit our modern ideas of intellectual integrity or simply it doesn't fit how we understand world history and science. But the stories and messages of the Bible did not start to fit into a modern world of science and history. They started to guide us into the reality of God and his gift of love, life and salvation in his Son, Jesus Christ.