FAQs

What Does Emergent Mean?

We are a community that is being guided by the Holy Spirit into the Church that She is creating. We follow in the traditions of the catholic faith, while opening up ourselves to new truths. We do not hold the Bible or Tradition to be the authority in our faith. We believe and are guided by The Holy Spirit, Science, History, and Love.

We choose to get to know the living Christ in our everyday interactions. We believe our mission is to fight for Social and Environmental Justice, Deconstruction of Harmful Faith Beliefs, and Respecting the Dignity and Humanity of Every Human Being. We even believe that other faith traditions are valid worship of our Loving God who is known by many names.

What is the History of the Emergent Church Movement?

“For a decade at the beginning of the 21st century, a small group of pastors, missionaries, and theologians set out to change the church. They were mostly GenXers, mostly men, mostly white, mostly evangelical. They planted churches and wrote books and ran conferences. They were quoted in the New York Times and Time Magazine, and they landed on the cover of Christianity Today and the Christian Century. And then, almost as quickly as it appeared, the emerging church movement disappeared.” Curtesy of EMERGED: An Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement. Click the name to Learn More!

The cause of this movements failure was essentially that the walls built by mainstream Christianity were way to huge to be penetrated. But the communities built by these people had major impacts on the people they served, paving the path of helping create a fully inclusive environment where anyone would be welcomed. As such we strive to continue in this way of ministry. We know a lot of mainstream Christianity and many in the Christian faith are not able to follow us in this journey, so we operate on the outside of the wall they have built keeping a lot of us out. We welcome you to join us!

How do you differ from other Catholics?

We believe that a person of any gender can be a priest. We have same-sex marriages. We have open communion. We do not have a pope, just Jesus Christ our High Priest. We allow you to use contraceptives. We do not require you to believe Blessed Mary remained a Virgin. We love contemporary worship music. Majority Vote shows us the will of God. We believe there is salvation, even in Hell.

What Gender is God?

We believe that God is Male, Female, Neither, No Gender, and All Genders. God is not confined by human boxes such as gender. Jesus was a Middle Eastern man. God can be a Woman; God can be God the Father.

Jesus was a Middle Eastern man. Fully Human, Fully Divine.

The Holy Spirit in our Church will mostly be referred to as a woman, but we do not confine Her to that gender.

How do we view the Bible?

In our faith, we study scripture in the historical context that which it was written. The Bible is not a scientific or historical textbook in the modern sense. Rather, it is a narration of ancient Israel’s tradition and that of the early church and the life of Jesus. It contains the ancient Israel and early Christian traditions and concepts of the past. A mixture of myths and legends, cultural memories, revisions of traditions, and literary brilliance. It is a complex portrait of the past that encodes the values of biblical religion and creates a rich array of perspectives on the world. There are authentic historical memories in the book. It is somewhat unfair to note the scientific inadequacies, since it was not written to be a work of modern science. The Bible is a powerful tool in which we are provided a window into the nature of God.

What Bible and lectionary do you use?

Most of our Services will use the New Revised Standard Vision Updated Edition (NRSVue). We follow the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). We cannot pick a Bible for you, but we recommend a Bible accepted by mainstream academia such as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), Common English Bible (CEB), The Revised English Bible (REB), and The Message. The King James Bible (KJB) is good if you know Shakespearian English and it’s history.

We believe the Holy Scriptures are composed of the Old and New Testaments along with the Deuterocanonical Book.   These Deuterocanonical Books for those following Western traditions are Tobit, Judith, Additions to the Book of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 1 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, and 2 Esdras. While those who look toward Eastern Christianity may include 1 Esdras, Psalm 152, the Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Maccabees, and 4 Maccabees.

What are you passionate about?

Including those not welcomed

We do not discriminate based on any label created by man, including, but not limited too: sexuality, gender expression, race, nationality, social economic class, criminal history, being single/partnered/multi-partnered/married/divorced, weight. We are creating a safe environment for anyone who wants to join. We strive to make an affirming safe environment for all.

Prayer

We believe our life of prayer is life-changing. Prayer is healing, releasing, and brings us into direct conversations with God. In our gatherings, we come to understand that all people are children of God, that God is not always found in the church, that the Risen Lord Jesus Christ is out in the world where we are called to bring a movement of love and witness of this great Love in this good creation.

Women’s Equality and Inclusion

We have always promoted the education and ordination of women. We strive to make strong and independent women who make their own choices.

LGBTQIA+ Full Inclusion

We promote and fight for the rights, protection, and full inclusion of LGBTQIA2S+ people in our church spaces. We firmly believe God has created multiple genders, that a person’s Gender Identity is a person’s real gender by God’s Divine Will, and that same-sex marriage is the direct will of God.

Man-Made Climate Change

We believe that one of the largest threats to our world is man-made climate change. We are horrified by the mass extinction event we humans have brought about. We promote green and environmental lifestyles to promote the well-being of God’s creation.

Faith Deconstruction

Sometimes, a person belongs to a religious group that has teachings and belief systems that greatly damage us. These systems are known to destroy lives and relationships. People are left hurt, left having created major emotional walls that put major strains on a person’s ability to have healthy relationships with themselves, the “church”, their families, and/or left distant or even hating the people we should love. People are left with a warped view of the Love that is God. Our group is committed to helping people find a new relationship with God and faith by providing resources and a space for people to have a deconstruction of their faith in a healthy, judgement-free environment.