our Core Values
Core values serve as guiding principles that shape our life together. They reflect how we understand our call to be the Body of Christ in this time and place as the people of God at Abiding Presence.
At Abiding Presence:
All Are Welcome
We Are a Faith Family, Together
We Are God's Hands and Feet in the World
We See People as Christ Sees Them
The below reflections were written by Pastor Keseley, Senior Pastor, as reflections on our core values.
On her confirmation Sunday, one of our high school students offered this power reflection, which demonstrates how we at Abiding Presence live out our core value that “All are Welcome.”
All Are Welcome
What do we mean when we say, “All are Welcome?” First and foremost, we mean you are welcome. But we mean more than that, too. So, here’s a glimpse of what this value means to us.
No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome at Abiding Presence:
If you are young or old or somewhere in between, you are welcome
If you have brown skin, black skin, white skin, or any color of skin, you are welcome
If you are single, married, widowed, divorced or in a complicated relationship, you are welcome
If you are LGBTQIA+, you are welcome
If you are sick or well, happy or sad, you are welcome
If you are rich or poor, powerful or weak, you are welcome
If you believe in God some of the time, none of the time or all of the time, you are welcome
You are welcome here, so come:
Come with your kids, your spouse, your extended family or by yourself
Come with your gifts, pain, hope and fears
Come with the church experiences that have helped you or hurt you or with no church experience at all
Come with the life experiences that have shaped you and challenged you
Come and be part of the faith family of Abiding Presence where when we say “All are Welcome” we mean all and we mean you, too.
This welcome statement has been personalized for Abiding Presence, but is one many churches have adapted from Gordon Brown’s Shaping Sanctuary. Thankfully, there are many Christian churches that offer a clear welcome to all.
We Are a Faith Family, Together
Family
As a congregation, we place a high priority on supporting families, especially parents/caregivers and children/teens. Our worship environment is one that offers grace to adults as they teach children how to worship. We invest with time, finances and staff in our growing children, youth and family ministries. We envision new ways to connect with students. Our Abiding Campus Ministry is a whole new way of understanding our responsibility as church for our college-age young adults. We want to be a church where families/children/teens are fully integrated into all aspects of our life and ministry.
Families at Abiding Presence come in all different shapes and sizes. At any given worship service and throughout the week you will find families who are nuclear, extended, biological, adopted, blended, separated, LGBTQIA+, interfaith and not-so-sure-about-faith. Our definition of “family” is as broad as the beautiful diversity of families in our congregation and the community in which we live.
Faith Family
More than just wanting to support families, though, we understand the church to be family. You will often here me teach, preach, write and talk using the phrase “faith family” to describe the church.
All that said, when we talk about family, we realize that it isn’t a word that creates a sense of warmth and acceptance for everyone. For those whose prior family and/or church experiences have been less than positive, we grieve with you and want this faith family to be a place where you find hope.
Together
At Abiding Presence, we live life together. It’s not perfect. Often times our life together is messy. Some days it involves a lot of forgiveness, grace, patience and strength. Many days, it offers great joy. We seek to be faith family that is real and authentic as we do life together.
Confirmation Family Camping Trip
Worship at Abiding Presence
We Are God's Hands and Feet in the World
Our Lutheran understanding of service is theologically grounded in Luther’s treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian,” written in 1520. The premise of Luther’s treatise is two-fold:
· A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
· A Christian is perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
From this, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) of which we are a part, has embraced the phrase that we are “one church, freed in Christ to love and serve our neighbor.” We don’t serve because we have to do so. Our salvation doesn’t depend on it. But in Christ we are freed to joyfully serve love and serve our neighbor following Jesus’ example. The tagline of the ELCA is “God’s Work. Our Hands.”
We are God’s Hands and Feet
Here at Abiding Presence we believe that we are the hands, feet and voice of Christ in the world today. God has no other earthly hands but the hands of God’s people like us. God has no other earthly feet than our feet. God has no audible voice in the public sphere than the voice of the church, the Body of Christ.
In the World
Everything we do as a church flows out of our worship, but worship is not all that we are about as a church. We are not called to be the church for the sake of ourselves or even for the sake of God alone. We are called to be the church for the sake of the world.
Each service we end our time of worship with, “Go in Peace. Serve the Lord.” We are sent out of the church into the world to love and serve our neighbor in the name of Jesus. Being God’s hands, feet and voice is one of the primary ways we live out our calling as followers of Christ.
We See People as Christ Sees Them
This value encompasses the idea that we both see other people as Christ sees them AND that we come to see ourselves as Christ sees us, too. They are two sides of the same coin of looking at people through the lens of Christ rather than the lens of the world.
First, let’s talk about how we see others through the lens of Christ. We know how Jesus sees people. The Bible is filled with stories of Jesus not only noticing those who were on the margins, but also stopping to engage with them. He touched people who were considered to be unclean. He welcomed at his table those who were shunned. Over and over again, Jesus widens the circle of who is included in the kingdom of God. No one is unworthy of Jesus’ time, attention and love.
When we look at others through the lens of Christ, we see not their sin, faults or mistakes, but instead we see that they are beloved in God’s eyes. We may not like them or their behavior. But, we are called to see them and treat them as siblings in Christ, beloved by God. That’s what we try to do here at Abiding Presence, whether the person is a fellow church member, one of our weekday community center guests or someone in the community in need of help.
I’ll be honest, some days this is harder than others. When telemarketers call the church, the last thing I want to do when I pick up the phone is to treat them as a beloved child of God. When someone throws a brick through the church windows like happened one summer, it is really hard to stop and see them as Christ sees them. When I get cut off in traffic or hurtful by someone’s words, my go-to lens is not Christ’s. It takes practice, lots of it, to see people first and foremost as Christ sees them.
To see others through the lens of Christ is not enough, however. We also come to see ourselves through that same lens. We are defined by our identity as beloved children of God instead of the successes or failures the world tells us matter. I continue to learn that I need the voice of this faith family and of the God we proclaim to be the loudest voice in my life and in the lives of my children.
I wholeheartedly believe that this core value in our faith community has the possibility of changing our lives and the lives of others with the good news of God’s love. It’s a different way of being in the world. It is the way of Jesus. While it is far from easy, it is important.
