Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Good, True, and Beautiful to the Glory of God and the Comfort of our Neighbor.

There is no news truer, more good, or more beautiful than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is the answer to every fundamental human longing we can imagine. There is a tendency to focus on only one of the three: goodness (what we do), truth (what we know), or beauty (the experience of the sublime). Alone, each one can lure us into a trap: self-promoting philanthropy, aloof intellectual snobbery, or obsession with empty emotional states. But the gospel makes us good with God because of what Jesus did; he makes us truly love justice and mercy. The gospel makes us know not just information but the living God. The gospel makes us wonder, not at human talent or charisma, but at the beauty and mystery of God. The gospel is the “breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for us. And it changes everything.

Christ Centered

Jesus Christ is at our heart, because he saves us from a life of misery without God and without hope. He is the key to understanding the Bible, because the whole book is about him. In him we understand who we were created to be. Therefore, everything we preach, teach, and confess will bring Jesus to the forefront of our minds. In how we love, show mercy, and care for others we will be his hands in our neighborhood, city, and world.

Biblically Driven

The Bible is the very Word of God. Therefore it is the final authority in our faith and practice, defining what we believe and how we live. Though there is increasing pressure to abandon it, we cannot. We find that it still holds true. And while we benefit from historians, theologians, and artists, we never give them the last word. The Bible is living and active, enduring and relevant, convicting and convincing, enlightening and enlivening.

Love Guided

Love is how we first encountered God, and it is how we want people to first encounter us. As the scriptures say, this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we love because he first loved us. Despite our imperfections, God’s love is perfect, and his spirit lives in us. We want to be known for love that is focused, specific, and sacrificial just as Christ loved us in His life, death, and resurrection. All are welcome here.

City Minded

The Bible begins with a garden and ends with a city. As Christians, our true citizenship is in heaven. We live as aliens and strangers, longing to worship God with every tribe, tongue, and nation in a city of perfect justice and peace. But we also love Cedar Rapids. God’s image is present in every culture, generation, and socioeconomic background here. We hope to celebrate and reflect its diversity, even as we are united through Christ.

Church Planting

It might sound silly for a church plant to talk about planting again, but we don’t think so. It’s in our DNA. God is forming and refining us, through prayer and struggle, into a community full of compassion, because everywhere we look we see people who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. We are only one church. The city needs more. So we plant seeds and water them and ask earnestly that God would make us grow.