Vibrant

Vibrant Relationships in Community
Vibrant Expression in Celebration
Vibrant Life in Connection with God

The essence of Vibrant:
A diverse urban gathering of people who are discovering who Jesus Christ is and experience life transformation through receiving and giving God’s love and grace in relationship with each other.

Colossians 1:20
Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe--people and things, animals and atoms--get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of Jesus’ death, his blood that poured down from the Cross. (The Message)

Vibrant Values:

Calling
We are a community of believers called to invest our lives in our neighborhood, by loving others with the same love that we have received from God. We join God in calling all people to be a part of God’s story and to allow Jesus to shape a new identity in us.

Vulnerability
In a community built on trust, we foster vulnerability by reserving judgment, and sharing grace.

Diversity
We believe God designed all people and desires all of us with different perspectives, appearances, and experiences to be one in Christ as we journey together.

Wholeness
We believe that the love of Christ provides wholeness through healing our spiritual, emotional and physical needs.

Mystery
We embrace mystery, acknowledging that we cannot know everything about God, yet lean on who we know God to be through Jesus Christ and the Bible. We value prayer and spiritual practices and acknowledge that God works in mysterious ways.

Vibrant C(ommunity) Groups: weekly small groups that prioritize

Story:
We discover community and wholeness through sharing our life stories.
We invite all people to experience the love and grace of God throughout biblical history.
We value all people as loved by God, believing each has a story to share that is important to us all.

Relationship:
We study the Bible together and are all equal participants in discussing its meaning and interpretation.
We receive our new identity by learning together about who God says we are.
We seek God together through prayer, meditation and spiritual disciplines.

Investment:
We believe that we all are given unique gifts from God that can be used to further what God is doing on earth.
We invest our time and resources into relationships with one another in order to be shaped into a real community.
We experience God through loving others through serving. We serve where the needs of the community and assets of our Christian community converge. We base Glocal (Global & Local) outreach on our faith in Christ.
Our Glocal ministry is focused on justice, advocacy and compassion.
*Justice: Intentionally changing systems of oppression
*Advocacy: Intentionally standing with those who are oppressed
*Compassion: Intentionally caring for immediate physical needs
We value partnering with whoever is meeting the needs of the community.

Recovery and Reconciliation:
We believe that God can and will restore wholeness to broken lives through recovery. We desire reconciliation in broken relationships across cultural and socioeconomic divides.


Vibrant Worship:
Our weekly gathering is to celebrate God’s transforming love for us in Jesus using music, spoken word, art and metaphor.

Varied Styles & Methods:
We intentionally focus on celebrating the love of Christ through various ways of our cultures and talents. We value diversity expressed rather than a homogenous or compromised style of worship. Rather than expressing worship in a particular style, we desire to celebrate God’s love in our eclectic community.
Spoken Word:
In worship we receive teaching from the Bible to guide our experience of life together in Christ. We each share our stories of life transformation.

The following is a description of the essential aspects of our Vibrant belief. This is our Vibrant statement of faith and definition of ideas.

About the Bible

We believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God, and that people were moved by the Spirit of God to write the very words of Scripture. We believe the entire Bible to be the complete revelation of God’s will for the salvation of anyone who believes, and the divine and final authority for all matters of Christian life and faith. In order to be clearly understood, we choose to use a modern translation as we study (such as New Living Translation or The Message).

About God

We believe in one God who exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this 3 in 1 expression God rules over creation and sacrificially seeks relationship with all his children.

About Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God, was incarnate on earth as fully God and fully human. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, where at the right hand of God he is now our High Priest and Advocate.

About the Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within each believer, enabling the Christian to walk in obedience to the Word of God. The Holy Spirit also empowers us to become more like our Lord Jesus and equips us with spiritual gifts for ministry.

About Humanity

We believe that men and women were created in the image of God to have fellowship with Him but became alienated in that relationship through choosing to disobey. As a result of their rebellion and/or apathy toward God, men and women are spiritually dead in their sins, and incapable of regaining a right relationship with God through their own effort alone.

About Salvation

We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross, provides the sole basis for the forgiveness of sin. Therefore, salvation occurs only when people place their faith in the death and resurrection of Christ as sufficient payment for their sin.

About the Church

We believe that the Church is the diverse and yet intimately united 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 wonderfully creative living God, cultivate personal growth in Christ, love one another in Christ, and communicate Christ to the world through words and deeds.

About the Christian Life

We believe that every Christian should live for Christ and not for themselves. By obedience to the Word of God and daily yielding to the Spirit of God, every believer should mature and be conformed to the image of Christ.

About Service

We believe that we are called by Christ to serve the immediate needs of our neighbors in love. We serve others to build community and live into the commands of Christ.

We are a member of the North Pacific Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. For more information about the Covenant and what we believe please see www.covchurch.org. In summary the Evangelical Covenant has Swedish Lutheran roots, is biblical but not doctrinaire. One of our favorite sayings is “Where is it written (in the Bible)?”