Our Vision
Life transformation through community – shaped by God, people, and the culture.
Our Mission
To be relevant to the unchurched and to bring them into an authentic relationship with Jesus and the community, growing together into the reflection of Jesus Christ and passionately responding to the needs of the hurting.
Our Core Values
1. Relevance: Connect Jesus with today’s generation by incorporating creativity and integrity in all that we do.
Allowing people to see that Jesus Christ is relevant in their lives is our chief task. We truly believe that life with Jesus is far better than anything else the world has to offer. We believe that in order to impact our generation the presentation of the Gospel must be relevant. We do this by first acknowledging the suffering in our world, not hiding behind religion but allowing suffering to enter our spiritual journey.
We recognize that we need to constantly seek new ways of doing church. One way is by embracing creativity in how we express our worship to Jesus by embracing the arts. In a world where the arts have dictated the pace of the culture, we too are committed to the arts, striving to impact culture rather than react to it. With an ever-increasing global village, we also believe the church should be the model for racial diversity. Since Jesus came to remove the racial and socio-economic barriers that separate us, we will keep ourselves from perpetuating those barriers by passionately embracing each other’s culture and background and celebrating this diversity.
2. Relationship: Foster authenticity in a diverse community through Jesus’ love and grace.
With the genuine love and acceptance Jesus has shown to people from all walks of life, we desire to be a community that will welcome people from all the rich diversity that exists in the NY/NJ area. We want to be a safe place for people to ask questions and engage in conversation about Jesus. We believe that genuine love and acceptance can only happen in a spirit of authenticity, so we must first be honest with ourselves, our hurts and our pains, and then allow Jesus to be a part of the reality of our brokenness. We seek to be authentic in the expressions of our faith, not merely partaking in religious practices. We must also be real and honest in our interactions as a community. We believe it is through facing the difficulties and the joys that we can truly celebrate the richness of our relationship with Jesus and with our community. And as we do this, we firmly believe that these relationships will last a lifetime.
3. Reflection: Grow as Jesus’ representatives to the world through training, discipleship, and service.
As followers of Jesus’ teachings, we seek to reflect the love, passion, and message of Jesus to the world around us. While recognizing our reflection of Jesus may be less than perfect, we desire to grow in commitment to training and disciplining ourselves in every area of life. In order to do so, it requires us to move towards a deeper understanding of the life of Jesus as our model and of our present relationship with Jesus as our constant motivator.
In celebration of the unique value and giftedness of each person, we encourage each member of our community to serve in the areas of their passion and gifting. It is through our acts of service that the growth of our faith and the building up of the community will flourish.
4. Response: Demonstrate Jesus’ compassion through catalytic initiatives of entrepreneurship, empowerment, and restoration.
Like Jesus, we are passionate about helping people who are hurting. We firmly stand against racism, sexism, and classism, because we are all one in Jesus Christ. We firmly believe that following Jesus Christ in the 21st century means having compassion and taking action for the poor and oppressed. We want to be a voice for people whose voice is not being heard. We want to offer hope to those who have lost all sense of hope. Whatever hurt life presents to us, we want to be a place where anyone can feel loved. We want to be entrepreneurial in our approach, which means creating innovative ways in meeting the needs of the poor and oppressed.
As we seek to be in solidarity with the hurting people of this world, we want to champion the task of empowering and restoring the disenfranchised, and celebrate with them the amazing grace of Jesus Christ.
What We Believe
1. The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are the inspired Word of God, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men and women, and the divine and final authority for all Christian life and faith.
2. Jesus Christ is God’s eternal Son. As true God and true man, He allowed Himself to be born of a virgin, taught men and women how to live through a sinless life, was crucified as a penal substitute for our sins, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, where, at the right hand of the Majesty on High, He is now our High Priest and Advocate.
3. Men and women are created in the image of God, tempted by Satan and rebelled against God. As a result of their rebellion against God, men and women are dead in their sins. Through repentance and personal faith in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven our sins, reborn by the Holy Spirit, and we become children of God.
4. Jesus Christ will return to earth to raise the dead, judge the world, and establish His glorious Kingdom. This is the hope of the Church and its encouragement for ministry. At the end of time the redeemed will go on to eternal life whereas the unredeemed to eternal hell.
5. There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
6. The Holy Spirit persuades us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord. He lives in us, teaches us, gifts us, and enables us to live godly lives.
7. The Church is the living Body of Christ on earth; Christ is its head and source of life. The Body is composed of those who have received Him personally. The Church exists to celebrate the living God, cultivate personal growth in Christ, love one another in Christ, and communicate Christ to the world through words and deeds.
8. Baptism soon after accepting Christ as personal Savior is a testimony to sin and resurrection to a new life, and the Lord’s Supper is a time of thanksgiving and communion with Christ, setting forth in sacred and symbolic manner the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the unity of His Church; all true believers and only believers should share in it. Infant baptism is appropriate of believing parents as a testimony of the expectation of the future grace of Christ in the life of the child.
9. Because God gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ, the true believer is secure in that salvation for eternity. If you have been genuinely saved, and trusted in Him, then you cannot lose your salvation. Salvation is maintained by the grace and power of God, not by the self-effort of the Christian. It is the grace and keeping power of God that gives us this security.