Belief Narrative
We are created as relational beings designed for an other. We are made from love for love.
Jesus reveals God to us. When we want to know what God looks like, we look at Jesus. In him, we discover a God who is merciful, kind, other-seeking, and—most profoundly—loving.
Jesus provides the story through which we make sense of our lives. In him, we discover our purpose, significance, and ultimate vision of the good life.
On the cross, the powers of death, loneliness, greed, and self-interest had their final say and have been defeated. Through the resurrection, God’s beautiful world of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, and justice breaks into our world of brokenness.
Becoming a follower of Jesus is not a contract we sign or believing all the right things. Instead, it is a leap of faith that leads to obedience.
As followers of Jesus, we are called into a new community which puts God on display to the world. Our life together through the power of the Spirit leads to the renewal and healing of our lives, our neighborhood, and our world.
In our life together, each of us is called to share our gifts in service to God and the world. And we stumble forward in spite of our doubt. Faith is not the absence of doubt; it is, instead, the willingness to stake our claim on the story of Jesus and God’s beautiful hope for all creation – in spite of our doubt.
As a community, we pray without ceasing, because we believe prayer changes things -- both in our world and in our lives. Prayer shapes and changes our desires and who we are becoming. It causes us to long for God's kingdom and not our own.
We are never afraid to face the Bible and difficult questions with a critical eye. We are not simply people of the book. We are a people of an event – Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
To follow this path of Jesus is countercultural. It is a radical movement of limitless forgiveness, extreme hospitality, peacemaking, abundant generosity, and sacrificial love.
God doesn’t cause suffering; God redeems it. And God calls us to join in the work of renewing, reconciling, redeeming all things.
As a community of Jesus followers, we follow a Jesus who shared an open table with all who sought him. That’s why we welcome everyone.
Through the Spirit’s guidance, the future is open and full of possibilities. We must embrace the awesome role we are invited to play in it.
The Details
1. Faith in the Holy Trinity
We believe in the one living and true God. There are three persons within this unity of one essential nature, power, and eternity—the Creator, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Mother of Us All. God is loving, holy, eternal, almighty, full of wisdom, goodness, and kindness, the Creator and Preserver of all things.
2. GOD The Eternal spirit
We believe God the Eternal Spirit is the source of all that exists, whether of matter or spirit. With the Son and the Holy Spirit, God made humanity in God’s image. While Father language is common throughout Scripture, so is female and mother language, therefore we use both.
3. God The Son
We believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, truly God and truly human. He died on the cross and through his life, death, and resurrection provided a way for us to be reconciled with God.
4. God The Holy Spirit
We believe in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Creator and the Son and is of the same essential nature, majesty, and glory as the Creator and the Son, truly and eternally God. The Spirit is the giver of grace to all and is particularly the effective Agent in conviction for sin, in regeneration, and in sanctification. The Spirit is ever present, assuring, preserving, guiding, and enabling the believer.
5. The Sufficiency and Full Authority of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation
We believe that the books of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament constitute the Holy Scripture for the church. They are a library of communities’ and individuals’ testimonies of experiences with God, revealing things about God that we would not otherwise know. We trust the communities that have come before us, believing that these testimonies can lead to our liberation and formation.
6. God’s Purpose for Humanity
We believe that the two great commandments, which require us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and our neighbors as ourselves, summarize the divine law as it is revealed in the Scriptures.
7. Personal Choice
We believe that humanity’s creation in the image of God included the ability to choose between right and wrong. Thus, individuals were made morally responsible for their choices. But since the fall of Adam, people are unable in their own strength to always do right. Through Jesus Christ, though, the grace of God makes possible what humans in self-effort cannot do. It is bestowed freely upon all, enabling all who will to turn and be saved.
8. The Atonement
We believe that Christ through His life, death, and resurrection provides the perfect redemption and atonement for the sins of the whole world.
9. Repentance and Faith
We believe that for people to appropriate what God’s preeminent grace has made possible, they must voluntarily respond in repentance and faith. The ability comes from God, but the act is the individual’s.
10. Good Works
We believe that although good works cannot save us from our sins or from God’s judgment, they are the fruit of faith.
11. The Church
We believe that the Christian Church is the entire body of believers in Jesus Christ, who is the founder and only Head of the Church.
12. The Sacraments: Baptism and Communion
We believe that water baptism and Communion are the Sacraments of the church commanded by Christ and ordained as a means of grace when received through faith.
13. Church Inclusion
LGBTQ+ individuals are unequivocally part of the image of God. Due to the harm the Church has done to LGBTQ+ individuals, and the extent to which they have been made to feel unwelcome by other Christians, we believe LGBTQ+ people have a right to know what they can expect at The Table Church. The Table Church believes that the Bible affirms the full participation and belonging of LGBTQ+ people in the Church. This includes all levels of leadership. Pastors may not deny marrying two LGBTQ+ people merely because they are LGBTQ+. We celebrate LGBTQ+ individuals and love and depend on one another without distinction. Learn how we celebrate marriages here.