What We Believe

There’s not enough room here to explain everything we believe as a church. In one sense, we believe the same things that most churches have believed for 2000 years. We believe in Jesus. We believe in the Word of God. We believe in gathering together as a local church. But, let’s face it, not all churches are the same. Beliefs vary slightly from church to church. Not only does each church vary theologically but the culture varies. The best way to understand what a particular church is about is to experience it for a season. But here’s an attempt to explain the unique beliefs and culture of Renaissance Church. 

Essentials
We are very firm in the essentials of the historic Christian faith as expressed in the Nicene Creed. There are people at Renaissance who come from a variety of faith traditions including Baptist, Reformed, Pentecostal, Catholic and so on. People within the community do not all agree about peripheral issues of theology, politics or personal convictions but we have created an atmosphere where peaceful dialogue happens. It doesn't mean we aren't passionate about these issues, on the contrary we create space for differences out of the conviction that in the next life, all those who are in Christ will be sitting around the same table. We also believe that the gracious posture that allows for differences results in a  richer understanding of Christ. 

We are not affiliated with a denomination. We do not have “distinctives” on doctrinal matters. In fact, amongst our leadership there is some measure of theological diversity. What we all agree on are the essentials. 

There are many nondenominational Christian seminaries and ministries, as well as many churches that have similar doctrinal statements on the essentials. One example would be the campus ministry called Cru. Another would be the publication called Christianity Today. One of our favorite churches, Church of the City in NYC, also has a nicely crafted basic doctrinal statement. We find these to be helpful examples of the kind of basic Christian orthodoxy we ascribe to.

Gospel 
The most important and frequently emphasized belief we hold is the amazing grace of God demonstrated on the cross. We understand that we are who we are by grace. God loved us while we were spiritually lost and dead. And he invited us to come to him. We responded to God’s gracious invitation and Christ made us alive, adopted us into His family, and lavished on us an eternal inheritance. 

We work hard to keep this central and allow this truth to produce in us gratitude and a longing to give ourselves fully to Him. We never tire of reveling in the idea that Jesus stood in our place and took the punishment we deserve. We are spiritually alive because He is risen! This Gospel is at the heart of everything we teach and do. We believe the simple message of the Gospel is nothing to be ashamed of because it is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1). 

Spirit
We are keenly aware that apart from Christ and the power of the Spirit we cannot be what God is calling us to be. We believe that our preaching, our devotion to one another, our love of enemies, our virtue, our bravery, our wisdom, our works and so on should be such that they could only be explained by God's power through the Holy Spirit. We pray constantly that our gatherings would be marked by the tangible presence of Jesus and that our lives would be marked by supernatural love. 

The underlying secret to being filled with the Spirit is to cultivate hunger and thirst for God through classic spiritual disciplines like prayer, contemplation and fasting. We devote ourselves to the lifelong pursuit of these things both privately and as a community. Because we believe that the power of the Holy Spirit flows through us, we dream big. Our dreams are not based merely on what we can do in our own strength and ability. But rather our dreams are according to the unlimited resources of the Eternal God who we are collaborating with in this great work. 

Great Commission 
The great call of Jesus is to go into all the world with the message of the Gospel and to shine brightly with our lives. We believe God calls us to serve people outside the walls of the church. We see Jesus in Scripture eating and drinking with a cast of characters that could be described as unsavory and irreligious. We want to follow Him in that. We believe that we are called to boldly step into hard and uncomfortable places. We are constantly building bridges into the surrounding neighborhoods so that we might demonstrate the love of Jesus in our region. We open our homes and hearts to all kinds of people. We work hard to display God’s love to everyone in our circles of influence. 

We don’t believe that it’s helpful to be pushy or aggressive. We don’t like to argue with people. We don’t believe that God is telling us to be invasive with people. Instead, we believe it’s best to simply live beautiful lives and love our neighbors deeply. We believe that the most effective way to influence people is by being authentic, gentle, and respectful. We find that when our hearts are overflowing with divine love, opportunities come about naturally to share our stories and even share the message of Jesus. 

We are fully persuaded that Christ died for all and that God desires all to know and enjoy him forever. We know God’s love deeply and personally. We have been utterly transformed by grace and have sweet assurance of eternal life. We are free from the fear of death. We enjoy the presence of God. We are near to God. What we have in Christ is just so good that we cannot keep it to ourselves. It is our sincere desire that everyone we know would be reconciled to God! 

Symphony 
We share the common conviction that mediocrity is not an option. We believe that the local church matters, and that every member is called to play their part well. We think of it like a symphony in which every instrument is important. When every instrument is in harmony and playing the music of the composer, under the guidance of a conductor, the result is stunningly beautiful music. We don’t believe in just attending church but in being fully devoted to one another in the spirit of the early Christians. We are convinced that only this sort of dynamic church will be taken seriously in a cynical world. We strive to fuse together our best to build what God is building for the fame of Jesus.  

The Word of God tells us that God intends for his church to be a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56). There’s a beautiful glimpse of the family of God in the last book of the Bible that describes them as from every tribe and language and people and nation. In other words, the future Church will be wildly diverse! It’s a very human thing that people gravitate toward people who are similar to them. People join together because of similar interests, ethnicity, economic status, race, education and many other things, but—it is our desire to be a faith family that reflects the diversity of the region we live in. We believe the Gospel breaks down barriers that divide.

Young people 
It’s always been a strong value since we began the church to invest deeply in the next generation. We are fiercely passionate about encouraging parents and connecting the next generation; we want children to really feel part of the church family. And we are even more passionate about praying for them that they would have genuine encounters with Christ that will mark them deeply. We want young people at Ren to really know God and to become profoundly rooted in Christ in such a way that they will not be shaken in their faith when they are older and tested. For this reason, we regularly include children in our main services; we include them in community meals; we are thoughtful about their discipleship; we work hard at teaching them in ways they’ll understand; we bring them with us into local mission efforts. We also bring young adults to the leadership table and have allowed them to lead in a variety of capacities. We are constantly striving to raise up the next generation.  

Revival 
What we mean by revival is simply the fullness of what God wants to do in our lives, in our homes, in our church, and in our region—in our time. 

We are fully persuaded that the present state of the Church, at least from what we see in New England, falls far short of what the Lord desires. We believe that the Father has so much more that he desires to unleash and lavish upon his people. 

Revival has been defined as an acceleration of the normal working of the Spirit. In view of the tragic decline of the American Church in recent decades, we believe there is an urgency about praying for a move of God in this generation. 

Revivals can be messy, no doubt. But the genuine, prolonged outpourings of the Spirit throughout history change lives. What we have come to see in our seasons of fullness is that God transforms us from the inside out. We are totally morphed; our appetites and affections change. We want to please God and we begin to repel the old sinful passions we used to love. Revivals have also resulted in the rebirth of multitudes of people and the fame of Jesus taking hold of entire regions and, in some cases, nations. So—we constantly cry out to the Lord for revival, awakening, and a mighty move of God in this generation that will bring great good to people and great glory to Christ. 

Honesty
It is common for people, even those who have had faith for years, to experience doubts or deep questions or even dark nights of the soul. 

We believe life is way too short to pretend. We are bent on being real. From pastor to pew we are not afraid of showing our flaws and admitting our failures. We are comfortable being who we are. We know that we are weak—works in progress—and far from perfect. So we do our best to provide an atmosphere where broken people can come, encounter Christ, and be healed. 

This belief in being honest applies also to our intellectual life. If we aren’t certain about something, we believe it’s best to be honest about it. If we aren’t sure what a Scripture means, we don’t pretend we do. There are a great number of theological questions that we simply do not have answers for. We believe in being honest about that. There are many passages in the Scriptures that we are baffled by. Instead of interpreting Scripture in a rigid way to give the impression that we are certain about everything, we believe in being honest about our uncertainties. 

The Scriptures were written over the span of a thousand years by many different ancient authors in a variety of contexts and written in genres that are not always easy to understand. We believe it’s wrong to pretend to know with certainty how everything should be interpreted. Some things are very clear. Other things are not as clear. We believe a posture of intellectual honesty and humility is the best approach to discover the truth about God. 

Creativity
We believe that since God is the Creator, we were created to create. We are made in the image of the creator. We believe that the local church should be on the forefront of creative expression, and the full orb of creativity and imagination God has given us should be harnessed to communicate eternal ideas in a way that is compelling. 

This plays out in our thoughtfulness of space design, worship, writing, websites, print design, installations, sermons and innovative outreaches. Creative expression is employed to serve the purposes of God. Often artists in culture challenge the status quo and are much like prophets who speak to important issues. Artists can be disruptive in needed ways to shake society and get them talking about what matters. We believe we have a special calling as a church to utilize the creative expression as much as possible to make Jesus known in this age of information overload. In a society flooded with competing ideas, artists can cause an idea to stand out. And we believe that the idea of Jesus deserves to stand out! 

Jesus
Perhaps the most important thing we can express is that we are about Jesus. While we strive to do all things with excellence, it is not to make a name for ourselves. Christ is our obsession and our treasure. We exist to know Him and to enjoy Him forever. We desire to display His greatness, splendor, and beauty to the world. This world is not our home. Christ is our life and our all. We make it our goal to please Him and bring Him honor and glory in everything we do. Scripture says, our lives are no longer our own; we’ve been bought with a price. We take seriously the call to surrender to Christ fully in every aspect of our lives. We have no interest in just being religious for a couple of hours on a Sunday. We don’t merely want to be talkers but doers. Our time, our talent, our money, our vocation, our dreams, our identity, our sexuality—our all, we surrender to Christ continually. We are no longer our own; we are his. 

This is in no way an exhaustive list of what we hold dear but we hope it provides enough to help you decide whether you should “come and see” what we are about.