Biblical – We love the Bible! Reading it, listening to it, understanding it and allowing it to shape our understanding of who God is and who we are in Him. It changes us as we welcome Holy Spirit to speak to us through it.

Prayerful – Prayer is our most powerful tool! God listens and God answers. We are a church that seeks to listen to what God is saying and follow Him and His plans in all we do.

Evangelistic – We love Jesus! He’s changed our lives, and we want to tell others about His great love for them. It is such good news, we don’t want to keep it to ourselves!

Generous – God is endlessly generous with us and so we want to share that generosity through all that we do and say.

Experimental – We love to try new things, to explore different ways of getting to know God and one another. Everyone’s contribution is welcome as we express our faith in a way that reflects everyone who’s part of our church family and community.​

1. God, who is Father, Son & Spirit (3 in 1 and 1 in 3) was delighted with the world He created – He said it was ‘very good’.

2. Humans are made to bear God’s image and rule justly under God, living in right relationship with their Maker. This involves looking after the whole world – people and planet, and enjoying God’s presence.

3. Humans turned from God, choosing to be our own gods. This broke everything. God is holy and cannot be with unholy, impure, selfish people (as we all are). Humanity therefore has a problem, which we brought upon ourselves. God didn’t just destroy us (as would be His right, like with the creator of a piece of art), He put in motion, as He always knew He’d have to, a way for us to saved.

4. This culminated in Jesus, a Jewish man who was fully God, fully man, coming to earth through the miraculous virgin birth. Jesus taught radical things, forgave people and started a movement for those who want to be His apprentices. Jesus lived THE perfect life. Yet Jesus was rejected and killed by those He came to save. Jesus’ death showed God’s love for us and His desire to restore our relationship with Him – in dying Jesus killed shame, fear, guilt and evil for all who choose Him. He rose again on the 3 rd day and later ascended to Heaven.

5. Jesus’ earliest apprentices became the church – a group of people empowered by the Holy Spirit to love all people, especially those on the margins, speak truth to power, care for God’s creation, forgive, tell people about Jesus and enable them to be apprentices too. This way of life is joyful yet challenging…if we don’t experience God’s joy then maybe are living in our own strength. If we are not challenged by a Jesus-centred way of life then we may be shaping God in our image rather than allowing Him to shape us in His image.

6. Jesus’ apprentices still mess up but do so as saints who sin and who can find forgiveness from their Father. God delights to forgive.

7. For apprentices of Jesus, eternal life starts now – we don’t have to wait for death – we can live a full life, in the presence of God now as we reveal what a God-centred world can look like. God’s people are Kingdom Now people. For those who are Jesus’ apprentices, death is the gateway to being completely engulfed in the presence of God – the sting of death is gone.

8. All people, including you, are invited to enter this way of life. God loved us before we were loveable. Jesus does not ask us to have things sorted before we come to Him. He invites us just as we are and as we say sorry to Him, recognise who He is and give Him control of our lives, He will change us through forgiving us, welcoming us into His family and giving us the Holy Spirit. That’s how we are given what we could never earn – being in right relationship with God.

9. Jesus will return in His full glory. This is good news for those who are His apprentices but bad news for those who have chosen to reject Him. Heaven and Hell are realities.

10. The renewed Heaven and Earth will continue for eternity and will be free from pain, suffering tears. Humanity and the whole of creation’s relationship with God will be fully restored. This is why, for now ‘these three remain, faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love’. One day faith will be redundant as we see Jesus face to face. Hope will be fulfilled as we live with God. Love will be completed and go on unendingly.