Our Values:

Expansiveness
Our first question should always be, "Who isn't here, and who needs to hear?" Jesus' own ministry extended the reach of healing and promise to more and more people, even those once deemed unworthy or outside of God's redemptive love. At St. John's we in turn share that expansive love as far and wide as we are able. We open ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit toward new understandings of the human experience, empowered by that same Spirit to seek any who are missing at God's table, recognizing that we are not whole when even one is lost.

Justice-making

God's ways are so often not our ways and our world falls short of the vision God offers. At St. John's we believe this is true and we know that we must trust the Holy Spirit to open our ears and hearts to the voices of the marginalized. We rely on the gift of repentance to help us face our own failure to act justly, leaning into a hope for restoration. We encourage one another not to stay where we are in our journey toward God's Kingdom-come, but to move ever-forward to meet God at work among our neighbors.

Healing
Jesus met people along the way and offered healing that was particular to their needs. At St. John's we believe that God meets each of us where we are in the unique set of circumstances that have brought us to a point of seeking healing. We hope to be a church through which all people can find wholeness, as God's grace fills the broken places in our relationship with God, one another or our neighbor. We understand that answers are not what is needed most, but just someone to walk alongside us in our most difficult times.

Humility

The bible reminds us repeatedly what our place is in relationship to God that we are NOT God. At St. John's we understand that humility is a work that takes practice, as we live in community with one another and the world. We seek honest conversations that acknowledge our own limitations, particularly as we each come from unique and varied contexts and experiences. We seek to learn from others, who bear a valuable witness to the work of God in their own lives, even when their worldview and opinions differ from our own. We confess we do not have the answers but rely on our faith in God to work in and through all people, in ways that we often do not expect. This requires us to relinquish power and not take ourselves too seriously; instead we remain open to being changed and led by those unlike us.

Constancy

We hope in Yahweh, who is a God of history - "the God of Abraham [& Sarah], Isaac [& Rebekah], and Jacob [& Leah and Rachel]" -- who enters into human time as Jesus of Nazareth. At St. John's, we rely on this promise of God to enter our story and invite our lives to be part of the great story of God. Even as we seek to be ever re-formed, expanded, and changed, we also hope to be a hub around which people can make better sense of how their own lives connect to God's unfailing promise. Through baptisms, confirmation, marriages, blessings and funerals, we encourage one another in a life of faith, setting people free to go out from our church on their journey with Christ, standing ready to welcome them home if and as our paths cross again.