What We Value at Crosscreek

We value being inviting.

We will lavishly welcome those who join us to worship, learn, and serve.
We will move beyond welcome to a stance of invitation, seeking out those who are without authentic community and lost in the milieu of modern life.
Each and every contact we have with those who are not yet a part of our fellowship will communicate a warm and embracing community, sharing our belief that all have value in God’s kingdom.

No one falls outside the lines of God’s boundless love. So we include all.
God has made every person in a unique and beautiful fashion. We celebrate that uniqueness and beauty.
We admit we don’t have it all figured out. So we keep our minds open, hearing the truth of God through the ideas and experiences of others.
Every person has worth to God. Therefore, every person has worth to us.

Restoration – We all know the need for wholeness and seek to create an environment in which all can find restoration through relationship with one another and the Divine.
Affirming the worth of every person – We want to embody a community in which everyone belongs and has equal value. Every voice matters in God’s kingdom.

We recognize that the exclusion of women in spiritual leadership is a modern and sinful construct (For wildly non-exhaustive examples of biblical leadership, please see the following examples: Miriam throughout the Exodus narrative; Deborah as one of the primary judges over Israel in the pre-Monarchy period; Mary as the theotokos – bearer of God; the women being the first proclaimers of the risen Jesus; Phoebe as a respected and trusted deacon in the time of Paul, etc.).
The full leadership of the church is open to all at Crosscreek, regardless of gender. The gifts of teaching and preaching belong to those whom God calls. We will not stand in the way of the call of God.
Women have historically been an equal part of the diaconate at Crosscreek, serving for over 30 years in this role.

We believe that the future of our faith rests in the hearts and minds of “the little children,” and encourage their active participation in the worship of God and service to the community.
We structure our worship and events so that children are not only observers of our faith, but participants in the worship of God through music, scripture reading, and an intentional time of worship for children.
As our children grow and mature in age and faith, we embrace the expansion of their gifts to the community and seek active avenues of their expanding engagement.

Genuine theology – We seek to embody what we teach and preach. We will have a theology that matches our actions and is informed by scripture, tradition, and being alive to the Spirit moving in one another and the world.
We will be rooted in hope, but flexible enough to move with one another to the places God is leading us.
Being challenged to a deeper faith – We will seek to understand that we are not finished in our spiritual walk, regardless of age or time as a follower of Jesus. There are always places where Jesus asks us to grow and challenges us to reexamine the tenets we’ve held. As a congregation we will foster places and space for this challenge to occur.

We understand that the historic movement of God, since the call of Abraham, has been to bless people so that they can be a blessing.
We seek to reflect God’s love outside our walls, in our daily interactions with those around us. Every day is a chance to enact God’s love upon the world.
We understand that we are formed when we move outside our comfort zone. We will use our resources to engage with those outside of our immediate area and around the world.
ln addition to our resources, we will send our people to make a difference in the larger world, understanding that our entire fellowship is shaped by our exposure to God’s presence in people who do not look, act, or think like us.
We understand God has blessed us and we will use God’s blessing to meet the needs the larger community around us.