Oakland church

Guiding Principles

We offer our guiding principles that seek to describe the spirit and nature of our congregation as well as Progressive Christianity. We seek to hold ourselves accountable to live them in community together.

We are Christian

We perceive in Jesus the divine qualities of love, peace, joy, and justice. Following the teachings of Jesus is a path to God.

We explore the Bible for its spiritual wisdom contained in symbol, metaphor, and history. We find in this sacred book stories that echo our own lives and struggles.

We have a specific tradition and history to which we are drawn. We also explore other faith traditions and create new ideas that will themselves become history for later generations.

We are Open-Minded

We understand faith as a quest, and live with the questions of faith.

We enter appreciatively into different points of view with the expectation of learning and growing.

We see openness as a key to meaningful spirituality.

We are Spiritual

We believe God is a spirit of love that can be felt and known by each one of us. It means Christianity is as much about the heart as the head, as much about the body as the mind.

We feed the hungry, care for the sick and anguished, house the homeless, and advocate for a more just society.

We are Evolving

We welcome change and innovation and eagerly experiment with new ways of being faithful.

We strive to be rooted but not stuck.

We are Diverse

We celebrate the differences among us such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, class, mental abilities, physical capabilities, personalities, and backgrounds.

We trust that these differences inform and strengthen community. A diverse spiritual community welcomes conventional believers, curious agnostics, and questioning skeptics.