We look to Jesus' life of compassion, healing, and forgiveness to learn what it means that God's love is for all people, and that love sets us free to live life to the fullest.
Jesus' practice of challenging hierarchies, breaking taboos, and reaching across social barriers upset the order of his day enough to get him killed — yet the story of his death and resurrection breaks the cycle of retaliatory violence and shows how love can be stronger than death. His death also shows how compassionately God is present, even in suffering, even (and especially) where God seems to be most glaringly absent.
We welcome and celebrate the inclusion of queer and trans people in all aspects of the community and in all levels of leadership. We believe that we are all created in the image of God and that each one of us reflects a unique and beautiful facet of God to one another.
As people of faith, we eagerly study the advances of science to help us understand how the world works, yet we also treasure the mysteries of life that are beyond our understanding. We are more interested in asking good questions that in repeating pat answers. We are always learning, growing, changing, and awakening. Encountering God opens our lives to hope, joy, and freedom.
We are a Reconciling in Christ congregation.
Our Reconciling in Christ Welcome statement:
We honor the image of God’s divine sparkle in everyone by embracing people of all ages, races, economic circumstances, abilities, citizenships, religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions. We commit to centering the lived experiences and following the leadership of Black, brown, Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ people, who have historically been hurt by the church. We are called to work toward racial justice individually and structurally, knowing that we need each other to be God’s Beloved Community. Come as you are!
About reconcilingworks
The ministry of ReconcilingWorks (who developed the phrase "Reconciling in Christ") affirms that our core identity is to build the Body of Christ so that we can come together and build a welcoming community for people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions, in all the human experiences that they hold. Church of Hope has always been a community that has supported and walked alongside members of the LGBTQI+ community and we are proud to be an RIC member.
This past year, ReconcilingWorks made a public commitment to increase their intersectional work dedicated to racial equity and are requiring all member churches to do the same. We have all been called recently to recognize the ways that race, gender identity, and sexual orientation meet to further marginalize some folks over others. We recognize the work that all of us have to do to create equity, safety, and support for our glorious siblings in Christ who live within those intersections. Our newly updated Reconciling in Christ statement strives to bring these inter-related commitments together, following the Racial Equity Plan that Reconciling Works has outlined.
We believe that all people are beautiful, lovingly created in the image of God.
Columbia City Church of Hope is a newly formed community in the Lutheran (ELCA) tradition. We believe that all people are beautiful, lovingly created in the image of God. We reflect the face of God to each other and have the honor of being God's hands and feet in bringing justice and renewal to the world.
God's promises of mercy, love, acceptance, and transformation shape our lives as individuals and as a community. We believe that God is everywhere in this world that God has made--within us, around us, beside us, beyond us.
We are loved and accepted by God just as we are, and with the grace and support of God through the community, we are able to grow and bloom into our best selves. We are changed by encountering God, challenged to carry on the work for justice and renewal all around us.
We value inclusivity, honesty, and grace.
Inclusivity. We are a radically welcoming community where each of us is accepted and embraced as our authentic selves.
Honesty. God can handle it. We can handle it. We are all works in progress, and we trust God and each other and ourselves enough to say what we really think and be who we really are.
Grace. God's love sets us free from doubt, shame, and fear in order to open our lives to greater generosity, courage, and joy.
We worship on land created by God and stewarded for generations by the Duwamish people.
We acknowledge: We are on land created by God, stewarded for generations by the Duwamish people, who are still here. We honor the Creator’s continuing presence in this land, confess our complicity in its brokenness, and awaken to our connectedness with all that is.
You can find more information about the practice and commitment to land acknowledgements in this ELCA Memorandum.