There is only one true reality and it is based on the scriptural precept that the Creator and God/human Jesus Christ is the central truth of the cosmos (Col 1:16-17).

The exclusive claim of Jesus Christ (Jn 14:6) excludes no one. Jesus Christ is the most inclusive person there is (Jn 12:32)! We are all implicated in the Second Adam even more than in the first (Rom 5:18).

Each person is created in the Image of God, who is Jesus Christ (Col 1:15, Eph 2:10). No one is outside of the blessing (Rom 11:32). No one, therefore, has more value than another. In Christ, all people have dignity, integrity, and intrinsic worth.

The Bible is not to be conflated with, or separated from, the Word of God who is Jesus Christ. The highest view of the Bible is one that submits to the Word of God (John 1:1).

Unless we were united with Christ, we could not know God or respond to God (Mt 11:27, Jn 15:5). As God, Jesus Christ shares his true knowledge of God with us, and as a human being, his true response to God for us. Within his response for us, we discover our most particularized and personalized response (Col 3:4, Mt 16:25).

We have been given the right relationship with God! Living into the truth of who we are and whose we are, we are reoriented by God’s transformational grace in Christ (Rom 12:1-2). To reject our relationship with the Lord and Savior to whom we belong is inherently self-destructive and ripples with a myriad of consequences (2 Peter 2:1-2).

We belong to God by grace alone. Not by what we have done, but because of who Christ is and what he has done (Rom 3:23-24). Repentance and belief occur inside of belonging (Rom 2:4). Jesus Christ is the Savior of all people (1 Tim 4:10) and the Lord of all people (Phil 2:10).

As proven in Christ’s sacrificial death, God loves us more than he loves himself (1 John 3:16). God’s good creatures fall into sinful self-destruction, but in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ has embraced all persons at their worst to rescue and redeem them for a renewed relationship with the triune God (Rom 5:5-10, Col 1:13-14).

Humans are made for community. Through the Son of God, we are by grace adopted children of God, created to share the relational love eternally going on between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Eph 1:3-10). We are therefore called to communion with God, and to kinship and mutuality with one another, all in the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17).

In light of the truth of Jesus Christ for all human beings, we refuse to be satisfied with a world-view that separates humanity from God or human beings from one another. In Christ, our true humanity resides, and there is no “us and them.” We belong to each other. That is the REALITY of reconciliation in which we may participate (2 Cor 5:19). Where there is isolation, discrimination, marginalization of any group, or discord between groups, we pray that we might by the Spirit be more a part of the solution than the problem!

We welcome each other unconditionally because of the way Christ has welcomed every one of us (Rom 15:7). Because Christ has forgiven us before we ask, we desire to do the same (Eph 4:32, Lk 23:34, Mt 18:22). Hospitality also involves providing a safe place where people can thrive in unity and peace (Col 3:15, Rom 14:19).