What We Believe
Wildwind is a church that was started with 30 people in 2002 out of a desire to remove the barriers that often keep people from being able to seek and find God in their lives. We are informal not because we believe formality is bad, but because for many of us it is a barrier to the realness of connection that we want to find with God and with each other in the church. We believe people should be able to come into church dressed any way at all and feel welcomed and never judged. And for us, informality involves a lot more than clothing but is our whole approach to church.Below is some stuff we believe.
Mission
Core Values
Convictions About Church
Our Beliefs
Wildwind is a Free Methodist church. While we do not think the Free Methodist church is the only Christian denomination that has managed to "get it right," we do believe there is a great deal to be proud of. Included among these is a history of concern for social justice, the place of women as pastors and church leaders, and freedom and spontaneity in worship.
Here are the essentials of our beliefs:
1. We believe in the "Triune" God - that God is one being, existing in three distinct states - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are three beings that share the exact same nature.
2. We believe in the inspiration of the Holy Bible - that is without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice.
3. We believe in the virgin birth of Christ; the mystery of his being fully human and fully divine; his sinless life; his crucifixion, death, and bodily resurrection from death; and his ascension into heaven.
4. We believe that human beings are born into a sinful state, unable to relate properly to God, and unable to provide for our own salvation.
5. We believe that Christ's death and resurrection from death are necessary and sufficient to provide for the complete redemption and salvation of all human beings who seek God in faith and depend on Christ to bring them to God.
6. We believe that the local church is God's chosen way of bringing people into the knowledge of Jesus, and training them to follow Him completely with their lives.
7. We believe that one day Jesus will come again as He promised He would, and that He will take all believers on the earth at that time to be with Him.
8. We believe in judgment - that one day every human being will stand before God to give an account for the way they have lived their lives.
9. We believe in heaven and hell. The one who has lived for God on earth simply continues to live with God in the next life. This is heaven. The one who has lived for self on earth continues to live for self in the next life, but that cannot be done in heaven. This is hell. Related to that, we believe living for God is as close as we get to heaven on earth, and living for self is as close as we get to hell on earth.
10. We believe God is the only judge, and we pray God's mercy and grace on all people regardless of their beliefs, while seeking to follow the path Jesus laid out for us.
Our Mission
To learn together how to find, face, and follow the truth in every area of life.
- Authenticity - We value what is real over what is comfortable; the gritty and edgy over the safe and sterile, never valuing form over function. (Col. 2:16-22; Psalm 51)
- Community - We value togetherness as the means by which the world can see God, and we will stretch to the limit to maintain unity. (Matthew 5:23-24; John 13:35)
- God’s Word - We want to honor God’s Word as a book that can not only save our souls, but usher us into a brand new reality – a totally different way of thinking about everything and seeing the world, as Christ showed us in the Sermon on the Mount. We will encourage our believers to be students of the Bible, and our non-believers to take it seriously as a place where they can find the truth. (Hebrews 4:12-13; Psalm 119)
- Individuality - We value the fact that God approaches us as individuals and shapes us differently and personally. Where the Bible is emphatic we will speak boldly. Where it is not emphatic, we will remain silent. We will operate in the reality that it is God who changes lives. (John 8:2-11; John 4:1-19)
- Innovation - We value creative use of every ministry tool available to us, remaining always open to change, striving always to deliver an ancient message with relevance, excellence, and accessibility. (1 Cor. 9:19-22; Psalm 150)
- Mystery - We value the mystery of God by acknowledging that he is to be found as much in questions as in answers, seeking as in finding, and doubting as in believing. We will say and do nothing that portrays God as being without mystery. (Job 42:3; Eph. 3:2-9)
- Prayer – We value prayer as a primary means of connecting to God. We will take and make time to pray. (Col. 4:2; Dan. 6:10)
- Process - We value the work that God is doing in the lives of people before they ever step through our doors. We will seek to determine what God is already doing, and join Him in that process. (Psalm 139; John 1:47-50)
- Spiritual formation - Because all of life is a prayer, and all of life is an act of worship, we value and use in our personal and corporate lives the means God has given us to become more like Jesus. These include worship, prayer, serving, giving, solitude, and the other classical practices followed by Jesus. (1 Tim. 4:7; 2 Peter 1:5-8; Life of Christ)
The church should be real – no games.
The church should extend people the same grace God extends to us.
The church shouldn’t keep people busy playing church. We should do a few things well, with emphasis on few.
The church should show people how to live identifiably Christian lives not by following rules but by connecting to God, who is the source of love and peace.
The church should spend as much money as possible serving and helping others, even if this affects building, property, and staffing plans.
The church should show the way out of the trappings of American culture and into a God-centered, God-shaped, and God-soaked world.
The church should identify, train, and multiply leaders and invest in creative new church efforts
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