About Us

Called to spiritual leadership many years ago, Lisa has come up "through the ranks" in the United Methodist Church as a Local Lay Speaker, a Certified Lay Servant, and a Certified Lay Minister; and she now enters leadership as a Licensed Local Pastor, as her education continues. Her experience and education in healing prayer, in leading small groups, preaching, worship design, and music bring her to be an enthusiastic encourager of all our congregation to enjoy the variety of talents given each of us by God's Holy Spirit. Her greatest joy is sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings forgiveness, restoration, potential, and hope to anyone who desires to grow in the Holy Spirit of our glorious God -- through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Music Director: Joel Matson

Lay Leader: Paul Page

Church Secretary: Dottie Beswick

Parish Nurse: Esther French

Missions Coordinator: Kelly Taylor

Admin Board Chair, Licensed Food Operator: Elaine Page

Trustees: Paul Page, chair, Bill Hissey, Joe Olah, Esther French, Kelly Taylor, Dottie Beswick, Ron Zimmerman, Joe Moore

 

With an accessibility ramp into the foyer, our building offers an acoustically beautiful sanctuary. Many musicians have enjoyed bringing their voices and instruments here for worship and for concerts. Our fully functional kitchen provides meals for special gatherings several times each year. Check our "Events" section for calendar updates!

We are a diverse congregation who love food, laughter, hard work, our community, prayer, and worship of the One we love the most, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We continue to grow and evolve, and are excited to experience change as new folks join us to work together in and toward what our great God is all about. Our involvement with the community and the world has recently been given a terrific jump-start: We are now an official HUB of Mission Central, a place where the potential to bring needed help to locals and to the world inspires us in many endeavors. We'd love to have YOU get in on this alongside us! Come to worship and ask questions over a great cup of coffee afterward!

 United Methodists share a common heritage with all Christians. According to our foundational statement of beliefs in The Book of Discipline, we share the following basic affirmations in common with all Christian communities:

The Trinity

We describe God in three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are commonly used to refer to the threefold nature of God. Sometimes we use other terms, such as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

God

We believe in one God, who created the world and all that is in it. We believe that God is sovereign; that is, God is the ruler of the universe.We believe that God is loving. We can experience God’s love and grace.

Jesus

We believe that Jesus was human. He lived as a man and died when he was crucified.We believe that Jesus is divine. He is the Son of God.We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that the risen Christ lives today. (Christ and messiah mean the same thing—God’s anointed.)We believe that Jesus is our Savior. In Christ we receive abundant life and forgiveness of sins. We believe that Jesus is our Lord and that we are called to pattern our lives after his.

The Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit is God with us.
We believe that the Holy Spirit comforts us when we are in need and convicts us when we stray from God. We believe that the Holy Spirit awakens us to God’s will and empowers us to live obediently.

Human Beings

We believe that God created human beings in God’s image. We believe that humans can choose to accept or reject a relationship with God. We believe that all humans need to be in relationship with God in order to be fully human.

The Church

We believe that the church is the body of Christ, an extension of Christ’s life and ministry in the world today. We believe that the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. We believe that the church is “the communion of saints,” a community made up of all past, present, and future disciples of Christ. We believe that the church is called to worship God and to support those who participate in its life as they grow in faith. We believe that the church is called to be a steady example of Christ’s presence, prayerfully extending the invitation to receive God’s love, nurturing, and joy!

The Bible

We believe that the Bible is God’s Word.
We believe that the Bible is the primary authority for our faith and practice.
We believe that Christians need to know and study the Old Testament and the New Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures).

The Reign of God

We believe that the reign of God is both a present reality and future hope. We believe that wherever God's will is done, the reign of God is present. It was present in Jesus' ministry, and it is also present in our world whenever persons and communities experience reconciliation, restoration, and healing in the name of Jesus Christ.

We believe that although the fulfillment of God's reign--the complete restoration of creation--is still to come.

We believe that the church is called to be both witness to the vision of what God's reign will be like and a participant in helping to bring it to completion. We believe that the reign of God is both personal and social. Personally, we display the reign of God as our hearts and minds are transformed and we become more Christ-like. Socially, God, who is Love, is actively working toward the restoration and transformation of all of creation. We believe it to be a privilege to discover and get in on God’s work.

Sacraments

With many other Protestants, we recognize the two sacraments in which Christ himself participated: Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Baptism
Through baptism we are joined with the church and with Christians everywhere.
Baptism is a symbol of new life and a sign of God's love and forgiveness of our sins.
Persons of any age can be baptized.
We baptize by sprinkling, immersion or pouring.
A person receives the sacrament of baptism only once in his or her life.
The Lord's Supper (Communion, Eucharist)
The Lord's Supper is a holy meal of bread and fruit of the vine that symbolizes the body and blood of Christ.
The Lord's Supper recalls the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and celebrates the unity of all the members of God's family.
By sharing this meal, we give thanks for Christ's sacrifice and are nourished and empowered to go into the world in mission and ministry.
We practice "open Communion," welcoming all who love Christ, repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with one another.

 Reflecting on Our Faith

There are two kinds of believing, and both are essential for Christian life. They're closely related and influence each other, but they're different. One is faith and the other, doctrine or theology.

Faith is the basic orientation and commitment of our whole being--a matter of heart and soul. Christian faith is grounding our lives in the living God as revealed especially in Jesus Christ. It's both a gift we receive within the Christian community and a choice we make. It's trusting in God and relying on God as the source and destiny of our lives. Faith is believing in God, giving God our devoted loyalty and allegiance. Faith is following Jesus, answering the call to be his disciples in the world. Faith is hoping for God's future, leaning into the coming kingdom that God has promised. Faith-as-belief is active; it involves trusting, believing, following, hoping. We believe, as stated in Hebrews 12:2, that Jesus Christ is the Author and Finisher of our faith.

 Theology

Theology or doctrine is more a matter of the head. It's thinking together in the community of believers about faith and discipleship. It's reflecting on the gospel. It's examining the various beliefs we hold as a church. Some may say that theology is only for professional theologians. This is not true. All of us, young and old, lay and clergy, need to work at this theological task so that our beliefs will actually guide our day-by-day actions and so that we can communicate our belief to an unbelieving world. Theology is thinking together about our faith and discipleship. It's reflecting with others in the Christian community about the good news of God's love in Christ. Both laypeople and clergy are needed in "our theological task." Laypeople bring understandings from their ongoing effort to live as Christians in the complexities of a secular world; clergy bring special tools and experience acquired through intensive biblical and theological study. We need one another.

Wesley’s “Quadrilateral”

How shall we go about our theological task so that our beliefs are true to the gospel and helpful in our lives? In John Wesley's balanced and rigorous ways for thinking through Christian doctrine, we find four major sources or criteria, each interrelated. These we often call our "theological guidelines": Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason.

Let's look at each of these

Scripture

In thinking about our faith, we put primary reliance on the Bible. It's the unique testimony to God's self-disclosure in the life of Israel; in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; and in the Spirit's work in the early church. It's our sacred canon and, thus, the decisive source of our Christian witness and the authoritative measure of the truth in our beliefs.

In our theological journey we study the Bible within the believing community. Even when we study it alone, we're guided and corrected through dialogue with other Christians. We interpret individual texts in light of their place in the Bible as a whole. We use concordances, commentaries, and other aids prepared by the scholars. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we try to discern both the original intention of the text and its meaning for our own faith and life.

Tradition

Between the New Testament age and our own era stand countless witnesses on whom we rely in our theological journey. Through their words in creed, hymn, discourse, and prayer, through their music and art, through their courageous deeds, we discover Christian insight by which our study of the Bible is illuminated. This living tradition comes from many ages and many cultures. Even today Christians living in far different circumstances from our own--in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia--are helping us discover fresh understanding of the Gospel's power

Experience

By experience we mean especially the "new life in Christ," which is ours as a gift of God's grace; such rebirth and personal assurance gives us new eyes to see the living truth in Scripture. But we mean also the broader experience of all the life we live, its joys, its hurts, its yearnings. So we interpret the Bible in light of our cumulative experiences. We interpret our life's experience in light of the biblical message. We do so not only for our experience individually but also for the experience of the whole human family.

Reason
Our own careful use of reason, though not exactly a direct source of Christian belief, reason is given to us by our Creator. We use our reason in reading and interpreting the Scripture. We use it in relating the Scripture and tradition to our experience and in organizing our theological witness in a way that's internally coherent. We use our reason in relating our beliefs to the full range of human knowledge and in expressing our faith to others in clear and appealing ways.
*This page relies on material published on the global website of the United Methodist Church. See the link provided upper right corner to umc.org for more information.

 

 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us because the Lord has anointed us to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent us to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord!