Our Faith Journey
Wesley asked only two questions of anyone who sought to join his churches:
1. Has Jesus the
Nazarene become the Christ for you? and
2. Does your daily life reflect that the Christ is at
work in you?
In this spirit, the NMC asks only these same questions of those who join with us.
Wesley insisted that faith is not an opinion, but a way of living; it does not rely on doctrines, but trusts in the power and grace of God's love as revealed through Jesus the Christ. In our faith journey in the NMC, we seek to live into that radical trust. In our After prayerful discernment and conversation, we offer the following reflections-in-process on our belief, rooted in historic Wesleyan teaching:
We believe in Original Blessing.
All people are made in God's Image: good and beautiful and filled with holy possibility. We "fall away" from this divine model through actions and attitudes that are hateful and hurtful and divisive; setting us apart from one another . . . and apart from God. Yet no matter how far we fall, nothing we do can destroy God's love for us.
We believe God's Kin-dom has come.
God's handiwork is present in all of Creation, and therefore all that is, is good. All that is reveals the Promise of hope and renewal and eternal love. God is truly with us, wherever we are. If we open our hearts and our eyes and ears, we will discover this Kin-dom, "hidden in plain sight".
We believe in Jesus the Christ.
Jesus revealed the passionate love and abundant grace of God; the Spirit of Grace set an answering reply in our souls. We are called, personally and particularly, to be Christ-followers, bearers of his Presence in our world. As Christians, our life's work is to grow into the image of our Lord: to love and forgive, to heal and bless, to nourish and care for all God's people, just as He did. We interpret all things in light of our Lord's commandments to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength; and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We believe no honest seeker whom God has called to the Feast should be turned away.
All who seek to know Jesus as the Christ in their lives are already one in the Body of Christ, already sharing in one Communion at this great Table. For us the Lord's Supper - the Eucharist - is a foretaste of the great banquet of God's Kin-dom. This celebration invites us to discover God's abundance, generosity, and longing for a human community without barriers and boundaries. We are called to make life "on earth, as it is in heaven". As a direct extension, we also respect the validity of other religious and spiritual traditions. We are committed to faithful journeys of learning and dialog, in order to more fully discover the many expressions of God among us.
We believe in "things seen, and unseen".
The modern obsession with "verifiable reality" -- the Cult of the Five Senses, has misled many souls. There is more to what is than what we can see and smell and hear and taste and touch. Prayer and faith, hope and courage, love and compassion ... these things cannot be "proved", yet they are far more real (and often more powerful!) than "the real world" devised by popular culture.
We believe in the reality of evil.
Evil is much more than "the absence of good": it is a divisive, destructive, hate-fueled force. It erodes the soul, poisons the mind, and hardens the heart. Evil is visibly at work in gangs, in violence, in wars, in grasping selfishness of every sort, and in apathy. It thrives in corporations, agencies and even governments. Evil damages all living things, and indeed our whole planet. We are acutely aware that as followers of the Christ, we are called to do spiritual warfare against evil in our daily lives, in all its banal and frightful manifestations.