tl;dr

  • Accountability, not enabling

  • Embodiment, not exile

  • Compassion, not competition

  • Curiosity, not control

  • Creativity, not conformity

  • Integrity, not celebrity

  • Presence, not perfection

  • Power under, not power over

We treat creativity as central to discipleship, not incidental to it.

We don’t believe the Christian life is mainly about correct behavior. We believe it’s about participating with God in bringing life into the world. Creativity, for us, is not a niche concern for artists; it’s the deep human vocation to respond to reality with trust, courage, joy, freedom and love. That’s why our theology is so concerned with what kind of life your beliefs are actually making possible.

We name shame and blame as forms of violence.

Much theology talks about violence only as something that happens “out there” with wars and weapons. We talk about the violence people do to themselves through shame, the violence they do to each other through blame, and the way both grow out of the same distorted desires & disgusts. We believe good theology should interrupt that cycle, not entrench it. That’s why peace can’t mean a spiritualized escape from conflict. Rather, it’s learning how to enter into conflict with presence, truth, and kindness instead of violence.

We take the body seriously as the site of revelation, not a problem to escape or overcome.

A lot of Christian language has trained people to distrust their bodies, suppress their needs, and pursue purity at the price of disembodiment. We believe the Incarnation explicitly contradicts all that. As the collective Body of Christ, we’re meant to live deeply connected lives in the material world, not escape or abandon it. Your body is not an obstacle to your spiritual life. It is the place where you encounter and experience God.

We think sin starts with broken trust, not with moral failure.

The absence of trust is the birthplace of conflict. When we start to believe we have to secure life for ourselves because God can’t be trusted to give it, we begin to treat ourselves and others as obstacles to conquer instead of as people to love. That means the solution to sin isn’t an endless struggle to fix your behavior. It’s a relaxing into the reality that you are loved, forgiven, provided for, and supported in discovering a different way to live. The effort to heal sin is God’s; your effort is to find creative ways to participate.

We treat repentance as a creative adventure, not a program of self improvement.

We’re not interested in helping you strive toward a shinier, more virtuous Christian life. We’re interested in helping you let go of what’s ready to be left behind. We see repentance as a slow, patient, one-inch-at-a-time reorientation of our attention away from the Accuser and toward the Advocate, setting us free to participate in the thrilling, terrifying adventure of bringing God’s Kingdom to life on earth.