Our Motto
“Changing Hearts...Transforming Lives...One Person at a Time.”
"Changing hearts" describes how God, working through his church and his people, seeks to make each of us different, more like his Son, Jesus Christ. He seeks to do this at the core of our being, our hearts. "Transforming the world" describes the essential feature of what our mission is all about. God, through his church and his people, seeks to completely change every aspect of ourselves and our world from the inside out. "One person at a time" reminds us that God has called his people to bring this heart transforming change to the world one person at a time.
Our Vision
“To be a people after God's heart.” (Acts 13.22)
As a community of people we deeply desire to live our lives, to the best of our abilities, like God would want us to live them. We deeply desire that the core of our beings, our hearts, would be shaped to become like God's heart.
Our Mission
“University Christian Church exists to help build God's Heart into People.”
A heart for God in celebration... A heart for our culture in mission... A heart for others in service... A heart for our family in community... A heart for our faith in witness... A heart for creation in caring stewardship... A heart for Christlikness in discipleship...
Our Core Values
Our main purpose in all of life is to worship God - the Creator, Redeemer, and New Life Giver with all that we are and all that we have. Worship is the passionate expression of the devotion of our hearts to God. We celebrate God's story and all that he has done and is doing to make our stories apart of his story. This is the best possible way to live.
We have been called by God to transform our culture. We undertake this transformation by being a counter-cultural community. We do this by living out the transforming message of Jesus Christ and by exhibiting in our everyday lives the values of his kingdom.
God's church, the community of His Son, has been called by God to make a difference in the world. We have been called to serve others, to relieve suffering where we can and to fight injustice where possible. We were created to be a community of mercy, care, and love for one and all. In community we are enabled through the Holy Spirit to live life authentically together.
At the heart of a community of the Son is a deep care and concern for one another. We cannot live out our faith on our own. Within this community we are called to share one another's burdens, to share what God has given us, to pray for one another, to confess our sins to one another, to grieve with one another and to rejoice with one another. It is in such a community that we are shaped to become more like Jesus.
God's story is about his loving creativity in calling us into existence. It is also about His creative love in redeeming us back to himself even after we had turned away from him. Because God deeply desires that our stories become a part of his story, He has called His church and individual believers to tell that story to everyone who does not know it, in our little corner of the world and around the world. To be a part of God's story is the only way to know real life.
God's story entails the belief that God is the creator of the world. He called into being all the goodness that this earth offers. As a part of His creation, He has imprinted human beings with His divine image and given us the responsibility of properly using and caring for all of His creation. Our story contains the belief that we are God's "earthkeepers."
Finally, as our story is connected to God's story through a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are also called to become more and more like Christ in every aspect of our being, in all that we say and do. As we journey through life it should be said of each one of us that we reflect the life of Jesus in our living.
Our Core Beliefs
We believe that God is Trinitarian in nature, manifesting himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is one and Yet three, three and yet one.
- We believe that God the Father is perfect in holiness, infinite in wisdom, and immeasurable in power. He is the Creator of all.
- We believe that God the Son, Jesus Christ, is completely and fully God and yet became completely and fully human in his life and living in this world. He lived a sinless life, died as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all and was resurrected from the dead. He is the Redeemer of all.
- We believe that God the Holy Spirit comes to give and sustain life, but especially new life. He comes to make us different so that we might live transformed lives. He is the giver of all new life.
We believe that the Bible is God's story of his activities in this world, specifically in relationship to the: Creation, Fall, and Redemption. The Bible also contains the stories of many who have believed in God before us. It is inspired by God and tells of their responses and relationships with each other and the living God. The Bible guides us in living out our stories so that they are in tune with God's story.
We believe that according to God's Word, salvation is our journey of faith in which we turn from our ungodly ways, proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord, Savior, and King and unite our lives with his life symbolically in the waters of baptism. We believe that God brings redemption to every part of who we are - body, soul, heart, mind, and strength. Salvation is the intertwining of our stories with God's story. Salvation is the transformation of our hearts to become more like God's heart.
We believe that the Church is the spiritual community of Christ, who leads us through the Holy Spirit to become more like Him. It is the place where we help each other to learn and grow in that Christlikeness. The church is a visible manifestation of God's invisible kingdom that spans time and space, over which Christ is King.
We believe that every church must ask how its story is connected to God's story. In doing so, it is necessary for us to live out and communicate the life and teachings of Jesus in the world and to the culture in which we live.