We are committed to the Christian faith as expressed in the ancient creeds and Reformed confessions, even as we are distinct in practice

We are committed to Christianity’s lasting understanding and interpretation of the Holy Scripture as understood in the ancient creeds and Reformed confessions, particularly as it pertains to social ethics. We willingly submit ourselves to God’s wisdom in Holy Scripture above our own and therefore to the authority of Scripture as our final rule in faith and practice.

At the same time, as Jesus demonstrated, the truths of Christianity must be articulated and held up in love (Eph. 4:15-16). Such truths are to be lived out and taught to others in the context of loving relationship; they are not weapons in cultural proxy-wars. As we speak the truth of Christ in love, we strive to be non-reactive and charitable with those who differ from our convictions. We will therefore avoid, as much as is possible, separation and exclusion of others who may not fully agree with our understanding of Christian teaching and practice, even while maintaining and living out our convictions.

Holy Scripture tells us that our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). This means we are free from the agendas and tyrannies that dominate our cultural moment: productivity, pace, power, and prestige. Our identity is not found in what task we set out to accomplish, how fast we accomplish it, or how successful we are in the end; our identity is given to us in Jesus.

At Christ Fellowship Church, we want to celebrate our identity in Christ, simultaneously resting in him and embracing our human finitude. This means we desire to embrace our human limits—physical, mental, and emotional—as the place where God meets, forms, and conforms us to the image of Jesus. Instead of seeing our human limits as matters of shame, guilt, and derision, we see them as God’s good gifts to us, wherein God tells us our worth is neither in our activity nor production, but solely in God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

We recognize that churches are sometimes attractional in nature, resulting in congregations who share demographics of race, age, and socioeconomic level. But we desire to see God move among us in such a way that we reflect the unity given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ instead of our human preferences, and therefore, by God’s grace, reflect the full scope of the local community that we reside in.

We believe that every member in the diverse tapestry of Christ’s church is being equipped for the work of the ministry (Eph 4:12). Ministry is not the special work of a selective group but shared by all (1 Pet. 2:9). We therefore resist the urge to elevate our pastors and leaders to a special class of Christian, even as some are called out from among us for vocational ministry (1 Tim. 5:17).

We also strive to create a culture that runs away from selfish ambition, vain conceit, and authoritarianism (Phil. 2:3-4), and toward humility and submission to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21). We value an elder-led philosophy of church leadership, where wisdom is vested in a plurality of women and men, rather than in any one person, and exercised not out of domineering compulsion and power, but out of humble faith (1 Pet. 5:1-3).

Furthermore, we are a church that values Holy Scripture’s affirmation and elevation of gifted and called women to any and every kind of role of leadership, preaching, and teaching in the local church.

We desire to practice the hospitality of Jesus, which includes exercising sacrificial friendship both within our local community and among the neighbors God has given us by opening our homes, lives, and resources to those around us.

We value cultivating a larger culture of hospitality too, creating room in that culture for doubts, struggles, and fears (Mark 9:24). We seek God’s help in bearing the fruit of peace, patience, loving kindness, and gentleness (Gal 5:22-23) as we cultivate a loving presence in the face of hard questions, traumatic pasts, and challenging perspectives.

We will follow our Lord who is near to those in pain (Ps. 34:18), neither shunning, shaming, nor severing relationships with hurting people who are asking honest questions about God, faith, and Christianity (Rom. 12:18). We will prize friendship and hospitality in our public gatherings and one-on-one relationships (1 Pet. 4:9).

Though not opposed to institutional programs, we primarily value ways of being Christian through faithful and simple—and often slow, messy, and organic—practices. Especially in our hectic, busy, and reactive cultural climate, we need the historical and often hidden practices of prayer, silence, giving to the needy, fasting, confession, assurance of grace, and the reading of Scripture.

Recognizing that many people in our cultural moment are also over-committed, resulting in hyper-productivity but often intense isolation and loneliness, we value relational community, friendship, and scriptural and liturgical formation as central means to cultivate and sustain living faith in Jesus.

Finally, we desire to structure our lives around the Lord’s Day, receiving from and being renewed by the Lord each week. In structuring our lives around Sunday, we will intentionally prioritize the Lord’s Day as a day of rhythm, celebration, and rest.

God is a defender of the poor, the weak, the downtrodden, and the needy. So, we desire to be a compassionate church, doing justice in the world, showing mercy to the world, and seeking the peace of the world. Like Jesus, we want to resist oppression and relieve suffering in our local community and in our world.

We will also publicly lament injustices, societal evils, and the powers and principalities that hold them in place. Where we are complicit, we will confess, repent, and repair what is in our power to. And we will seek ways beyond mere financial contribution to meaningfully participate in acts which “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8; cf. Prov. 21:3).

We desire to be part of God’s mission to the world by encouraging and seeing new local churches, by supporting ministries of mercy in St. Louis, and by supporting global missionaries and agencies.

Furthermore, recognizing the integral relationship between our faith and our public vocations, we will pursue our unique callings with Christian integrity, excellence, confidence, and distinctiveness, and winsomely contribute to public life through our various life-spheres.