Values

Healthy-Kingdom-Church + Balancing The Bar Stool

WORD + In the beginning GOD – WORD.  God spoke.  God speaks.  The Word begins and ends our story, our worship, our mission.  The Word is providing a masterful framework for the entire Creation.  We are transformed by the Word of God dwelling in and among us, modeling Life to the Full for us, dying for us, Resurrecting us.  The Word pierces through our intellect, informing our imagination, and repairing our fragile hearts with wild-Spirit-hearts.  We abide in the Word and therefore receive the rest and nutrients we need to bear good fruit for the world to taste and see that the Lord is good. The Word informs our reality, providing us with eyes to SEE and ears to HEAR.  We are energized for mission by the Story of God – reading, remembering, inhaling, eating, preaching, teaching, proclaiming and ultimately, living the Word.

SPIRIT + We are practicing the Way of Jesus and his disciples throughout the ages by breathing in the Pneuma (aka “breath” or spirit).  We consistently posture ourselves to drink from the Rock of God and hear from the Wind of God – What is being offered or whispered?  What is he proclaiming boldly through the Scriptures, visions, and the people right around us?  We are boldly practicing prayer, faith, intercession, healings, prophecy, and are generally learning to unwrap and use all the gifts of the Spirit - for the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of POWER.

JUSTICE + God bleeds justice.  Jesus bled justice.  For who do we bleed?  For what legacy are we bleeding?  What makes us righteously angry?  What are we fighting For/against?  What would the untamed gospel of Jesus look like if unleashed in Scarborough, Greater Portland  & to the ends of the earth?

We are sent out from CCC to proclaim the Good News in Word & DEED.   Justice naturally happens when the Message of Jesus and the Messenger of Jesus are ONE in Spirit.  We call this PRAXIS – Religion has been merely words, only words -PRAXIS is when words intersect with accurate forms of love to REAL people in REAL settings.  Word becomes incarnated – IN-FLESH-MENT.  Justice happens when we – the Body of Christ - care for the poor, oppressed, and orphaned.  Justice happens when we look, act, and bleed like Jesus in everyday settings rather than only episodic events.

COMMUNITY + “Ubuntu – I AM because WE ARE” – We are becoming a new kind of family shaped by the pattern of Jesus and his followers throughout the ages rather than imprinted by the American culture of rugged individualism.  We practice a lifestyle of hospitality – open doors, open hands, open to interruptions.  We ask redemptive questions like, “Do your friends have access to your refrigerator, your recurring sin patterns, your weekly receipts or…have you settled for only raising a happy family, drinking beer, watching football, and overlooking a close friends’ gaping wounds?” We call a spade a spade – we practice speaking Truth in LOVE.  We share lawnmowers, share in sacramental meals, share our weaknesses, and offer forgiveness.  Weaknesses are covered by the strengths of other members of the body of Christ here and abroad.   We ask for HELP & HEALING. We practice the art of vulnerability, sacrifice, and hearing our neighbors’ stories.  We play yard games, become aunts and uncles for each others’ children, and enjoy the little things of ordinary, Maine living together.  We are bound together as a new kind of family on a common pilgrimage in the Way of Jesus.  Ubuntu!