When we started TerraNova, we began with discussions surrounding values. The conversations were lively and so interesting. After months of back and forth, we landed on 7 values that continue to shape us today. Values that are themselves rooted in beliefs we hold deeply to be true, and in many cases, run against the stream of culture. Values that describe the kind of community we want to be.
1) Christ-centered
We are a community rooted in ancient truth. God has been revealing himself since the beginning of time — first through creation, then through the experiences and writings of many who have gone before us found in scripture. Finally and ultimately, he has revealed himself personally in Jesus.
To be a rooted, Christ-centered community means that we are centered around and driven by the life and message, the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In a world of rootlessness and constant change, we are seeking to follow the Creator God in the way of Jesus.
See: Hebrews 1:1-3. Colossians 2:6-10. 2Timothy 3:14-17. Matthew 28:18-20. John 14:4-10.
2) Incarnational
We believe that Jesus is God in human form — God putting on skin and bone, and moving into our world in order to make himself knowable to us.
And we believe that the church is the body of Christ — people putting skin and bone on the life and message of Jesus, and moving into our world in order to make Him knowable.
Therefore, we are a community that seeks to enter into the lives and worlds of the people in our surrounding community in order to be good news to them. And, because we believe that God is a champion of the outcast and the broken, we particularly seek to bring the presence of Christ to the broken places and people of our world — in South County and around the globe.
See: John 1:1-18. Philippians 2:5-11. Genesis 12:1-3. Matthew 5: 13-16. Luke 4:14-21. James 1:27. Deuteronomy 10:17-19.
3) Accessible
We believe that God wants to reach people in ways that are real and meaningful to them — to engage and enter into cultures in order to redeem and transform them.
We want to be a community that is experiencing the life-changing truth of God, and then expressing that truth in ways that are meaningful, compelling, and accessible to people all around us — particularly, the uninitiated and unconvinced.
We seek to create environments where people with or without any spiritual background can come, work through their issues with God, and discover life with God in a way that makes sense.
See: Luke 5:27-31. Luke 15. 1Corinthians 9:19-23; 10:31-11:1. Acts 17:16-33. 1Thessalonians 2:1-12.
4) Participative
We believe that we are created to live deeply with one another — loving and being loved, knowing and being known, needing and being needed, celebrating and being celebrated.
It is in the context of committed, authentic community — each person bringing their gifts, abilities, questions, doubts, learnings, insights, resources — that the Spirit's power to transform lives is dramatically unleashed. Love becomes the rule. Old wounds begin to heal. Offenders find forgiveness, and true conversion becomes a reality.
In a world of individualism and consumerism, we seek to be "we"-centered. The way of Jesus cannot be lived alone.
See: Acts 2:42-47. 1Corinthians 12-14. Ephesians 4:1-16. Acts 6:1-7. Acts 13:1-3.
5) Inclusive
We value the image of God in all people, everywhere. In a world of gated communities and exclusive clubs, in a context where people gravitate toward their own, we seek to be a community that is always looking out, looking around — to the stranger, the lonely, the excluded, the overlooked.
We believe that the community of God is a place where messed-up, broken people like us are treated as normal and loveable; where the guest or stranger walks up and becomes part of the family.
See: Luke 14:15-24. Galatians 3:26-28. Deuteronomy 10:17-19.
6) Worshiping
Though we believe all of life and every moment is sacred, an act of worship, we also believe that "the church gathered" is the unique expression of Jesus, and that worshiping collectively engages the presence of Jesus in a way that worshiping alone cannot.
Therefore, we seek to be a community that worships — prays, serves, sings, gives, experiences God together — in ways that transform us, make us whole, align us with reality, and compel us outward to be the presence of Jesus in God's world.
See: Romans 12:1-2. Isaiah 6:1-8. John 4:1-38. Genesis 32:22-32. Hebrews 10:24-25. Matthew 18:20.
7) Simple
In a harried, overextended, fast-paced world, we seek to live against the grain — to live deeply, significantly, simply. Jesus taught and modeled a way of living with God that did not encumber or entangle, weigh down or oppress.
Following in the way of Jesus, we seek to remove distraction and align our lives and community with an approach to living intentionally and missionally that both forms the life of Christ in us and frees us to live that life deeply in our world.
See: Matthew 11:28-30. Matthew 22:37-40. Luke 10:38-42. Matthew 28:18-20.