The values of a church drive the attitude and feel of how the mission and vision are experienced. Two churches can hold the same beliefs and share the same mission, yet have different values. The following are the core values that reflect the personality of Rivers Crossing.
BALANCE:
The core of the Trinitarian God is a wonderful picture of symmetry and balance. We strive to be a community that focuses on the essential truths of the scriptures without being derailed by the nonessential doctrines and dogmas that lead to division and schisms.
SIMPLICITY:
Love God, love ourselves, love our neighbor as ourselves. The good news of Jesus' message is profound and challenging, but not complicated.
JOURNEY:
Saying yes to Jesus is not the end but the beginning of a lifelong journey of discipleship. Following Jesus is not a destination to be reached, but a life to be lived in authentic community with believers and meaningful relationships with non-believers. We will embrace people wherever they are on their spiritual journey, pointing them to Jesus as the source of an extraordinary life.
MISSIONAL:
A missional community reflects God's heart to go to the hurting, disenfranchised, and broken people of their community and the world. It is the extension of the Trinity's love and missionary activity as embodied by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is a group of Jesus' followers who are learning how to be sent as he was sent - in the fullness of God in all aspects of an integrated spiritual and social life. Such a community will change the world by serving, loving, and healing the world: one life at a time. We are committed to reproducing other missional churches through church planting and supporting church planters.
LOVING COMMUNITY:
Jesus said that the world would know his followers by the love they had for each other. We are a community learning to love each other and to show that to the world. Our church environments will be marked by authentic, friendly Christ followers loving each other and loving those who are seeking a relationship with God.
WORSHIP AND CREATIVITY:
As image bearers of God, we have the incredible ability to reflect Jesus to our world through our worship. Worship is much more than "group singing"; it is a lifestyle of expressing our love to God through our actions, lifestyle, and work. We believe that when fully engaged followers of Jesus gather for corporate worship their creative expressions of love towards God are experienced through art, film, music, design, Christ-centered preaching, and more. In bringing glory to God in worship, we believe those far away from God will be drawn to Jesus Christ.