Our Mission, Vision and Values
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Our Vision
We are motivated by the hope of God’s promise for creation. Our vision expresses the world that God is leading us toward which is the purpose behind our calling. Click below to read our Vision Statement.
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Our Mission
What we do, day in and day out, toward making our vision a reality. Click below to read our Mission Statement.
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Our Values
What makes St. Andrew’s unique? What does our history reveal about us, where do we find joy and fulfilment? Click below to read about our values.
Our Vision
We envision a time when all people are valued,
injustice and suffering are abolished,
and God’s love and joy abound.
Our Mission
St. Andrew’s Mission is to create and sustain an environment where followers of Jesus Christ are nurtured and challenged to grow in faith in order to carry out God’s reconciling work in the world.
The bolded words and phrases are defined below:
Create and sustain an environment
• We create physical environments where members and visitors find spiritual inspiration.
• We engage in acts of worship where people encounter the living God.
• We relate to each other in ways that promote wellbeing, treating all people with dignity, respect, and honesty.
• We adhere to financial policies that promote community trust and openness.
• We are intentional about welcoming strangers into our community as friends.
• We hold standards for our leaders and support them in their work.
Followers of Jesus Christ
We believe in Jesus Christ as witnessed through the Old and New Testaments and seek to follow the example that he demonstrated by loving God and loving neighbor.
Nurtured in Faith
Faith is an experience that needs the support of a community. Church members provide support for one another in times of need and offer examples of faith that others can look to during challenging times.
Challenged to Grow in Faith
Faith is an experience that needs challenge in order to grow and thrive. We are challenged through education, in our relationships with others, by doing mission work in the community, participating and leading worship experience, reading scripture alone or in groups, and more.
God’s reconciling work in the world
God’s reconciling work is modeled by the teachings and sacrificial life of Jesus and includes the following: welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, working for justice and peace, standing with the marginalized, comforting the grieving, seeking out the lost and more.
Our Values
Curiosity
Grounded in the desire to know God, St. Andrew’s embraces a spirit of intellectual and spiritual curiosity. While honoring the essentials of the Christian faith, we encourage a free exchange of ideas and openness to learning.
Affirmation of Diversity
In seeking to be the Body of Christ, we honor the unique experience of each person. St. Andrew’s is a community in which different perspectives are treated with respect, even in matters of disagreement. Members, friends, staff, and visitors are treated with dignity as children of God regardless of age, ability, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, cultural background, theological stance, economic status, or political affiliation.
God’s Presence in the World
We believe our faith is reflected in our awareness of and actions in the here and now. Our work as a church is to be carried out with the people we meet everyday and the conditions of life in the present. We are particularly mindful of nature as an expression of God’s presence in the world and seek to honor that presence by caring for the environment.
Art as an Expression of Faith
We recognize that the reality of God cannot be fully expressed due to the limits of our awareness. Therefore, we seek to incorporate various means of artistic expression in order to create a fuller experience of truth. These expressions include music, art, poetry, storytelling, and more.
Honoring Traditions
We are grateful to be affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our forms of worship and our theological commitments reflect our place in the Reformed Tradition and our governing bodies adhere to the Constitution of the PC(USA).
