The Journey
Mohandas Ghandi once said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." That troubles us. Jesus was absolutely committed to truth and in fact said, "*I am the way, the truth and the life*, no one comes to the Father but by me." Somehow, though, Jesus' commitment to truth didn't put people off. Too often in the church our commitment to that same truth has a way of coming across as arrogant and "holier than thou" and then our lives speak a different truth than the one we proclaim on Sundays. If that is your experience of the church, that it is intolerant and defensive about honest questions, the Journey is designed for you.
We believe the truths of the church. Seventeen hundred years ago representatives of churches from the known world gathered and discussed what the Christian church believed. Those councils put together Creeds, statements of belief, that were shared by all the churches, and these formed the basis of the doctrine and teaching of the early, undivided church. At the Journey, we believe that those ancient creeds express the truth about the world and help us understand life. The English writer Dorothy Sayers once wrote, "Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine-dull dogma as people call it. The fact is quite the opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man-and the dogma is the drama." We believe that the church's story is true and also compelling in a way that teaches us to love God, one another and the world He created and died for.
We believe also that within that truth there is room for discussion and for questions about "how and why." We believe that having answers doesn't mean there aren't still questions. We believe that genuine seekers have valid questions and should have a place to ask them. We believe in humility in knowing and proclaiming the truth, the humility of Jesus which was the desire that others would know the truth. We believe that being a Christian doesn't mean you should check your brain at the door, but we believe that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. We believe that understanding how all things came into being doesn't require you to dismiss science and that the wonders of the universe, its creation and existence are things to be explored and marveled at but that ultimately the fact that we exist at all is something that is best explained by a belief in the God who lovingly created us. We believe that His creation is wonderful but not as wonderful as when it was created. We believe that we are stewards of this creation and that Christians have a responsibility for our care of this creation God said was very good. We believe that all life is precious to God and that we are special in that we bear the image of that loving creator.
We believe that the church should be a place of honesty, honesty about who we are and who we aren't. We believe that there is much more to like about Jesus than there is about us. We believe that He was without sin and perfectly revealed the Father. We believe that we are redeemed sinners who are striving to allow His Spirit to reveal Him through our lives but we do so imperfectly because of the continuing reality of sin. We believe in forgiveness, sharing the mercy and grace we have received with others. We believe in the church even though many of us have been hurt by the church, because Jesus said it was His bride.
The Journey is a place where we gather to sing, pray and learn from one another. We believe in preaching but we also believe that even pastors learn from the questions we are asked, so we welcome your questions. We don't promise easy answers and we don't promise that we can answer every question, but we know that honest questions deserve honest responses and we pledge to be honest in our answers. We believe life, including our life of faith, is a journey and that we don't get all our questions answered in this life but that we are moving along a path towards a time and place where they will be and we seek to learn all we can on that journey. We believe that the journey is best if there are others with us who are committed to honesty and truth-seeking, who believe there is a better way to live and love and who know they don't have it all or all the answers. If you believe in such a community we invite you to come and join us and bring your questions as we seek to know the truth and make it known in a way that honors God and allows the world to like Christians like they like our Christ.
