A Gracious Atmosphere

We value a grace-filled atmosphere. Because God continually shows to us a vast display of amazing grace and patience, we want to do the same for each other. We seek to have a church that refrains from being nitpicking with others. You will discover that there are people in a wide spectrum of spiritual maturity levels and there are many who come to our services who are ‘observers’-taking time to see what this ‘God-thing’ is all about. We try hard by God’s grace to live out the Biblical principle: Love Covers a Multitude of Sins. -which in essence means that we cut each other a lot of slack. We want to be a church with gracious, non-critical spirits. We all come with ’slightly irregular’ tags attached to the garment of our Christian lives. Raintree Community Church’s desire is to be is a safe place to admit when you fail. At the same time people are there to encourage and support you with truth. We believe that the truth of the Word of God is the primary catalyst for the transformation in the lives of people. ‘Love’ without truth does not give people ultimate solutions. On the other hand, ‘truth’ without love tends toward cold orthodoxy.

Love Balanced With Truth

The New Testament is clear: “The greatest of these is love.” If you have love, you really don’t need much else; but if you don’t have love, not much else really matters. We want to be a church known by it’s love- “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” But ‘love’ without ‘truth’ is not real love. Jesus said “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) Therefore we value highly the Word of God as our ultimate source and authority for truth. God’s Word trumps everything else. We are committed never to sacrifice truth to anything, for when we do we are not showing ultimate love to people.

A Main Focus

We are committed to keeping the “Main Thing” the “Main Thing”. Our main thing is to help as many people as we can to have a passion for God and compassion for people. We believe that lost people matter to God, therefore they ought to matter to the church. Jesus explained that the primary thing He came to do was to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10) It is very easy to get side-tracked from the “main thing.” In any church, there will arise individuals who have particular points of teaching that are important to them. We as the leadership team try to be transparent from the outset as to who we are as a Church and what we are about, and our beliefs. We value very highly maintaining peace within the church. We ask that if there is something said or done that could disrupt the unity of the body, that in humility you commit that between you and God alone- and “seek the things that make for peace.”

Joy (Humor Included)

Author John Piper writes: A great part of God’s glory is His happiness. Can you imagine what it would be like if the God who ruled the world were not happy? What if God were given to grumbling and pouting and depression like some Jack-and-the beanstalk giant in the sky? It is good news that God is gloriously happy. No one would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God. Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when He says, “Enter into the JOY of your master:” Jesus lived and died thatHis joy-God’s joy-might be in us and our joy might be full. We feel that not only is joy important for our own souls but it is one of the most attractive elements about the Christian life. You will discover lots of joy and yes- lots of humor.

Authenticity

We try not to “do the church thing.” We believe that the best atmosphere and climate of a church is to be real. It’s okay to let people know where we are at in our walk with God-even if we are struggling. We simply want to put away any masks and be who we are. Be yourself! And help us all to be ourselves as well.
Relevance
We are committed to explore, describe, and demonstrate the relevance of the Christian faith in our community. Our culture has many subtleties which must be understood in order to effectively convey the good news that God has given to us to communicate. For example our culture is very visually oriented, therefore we use communication forms and styles that are relevant. Music, drama, the arts, video/film can be effective in communicating truth. We never want to sacrifice truth for relevance but we realize that truth can be obscured by presenting it in irrelevant ways.

Freedom + Holiness

God made each of us unique, with different tastes, different personalities, different strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Christians have not historically always agreed on certain cultural practices (ex. In the New Testament a big issue was: Should a Christian eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols?). In the same way there are cultural issues that arise in the 21st century church-such as what movies & videos we watch, clothing and hair styles, dancing, activities on Sunday, drinking wine in moderation, music, celebration of certain holidays, etc.. Romans 14 is clear as to what to do in such cases: “Those who feel they do not have the freedom to participate should be careful not to judge those who do. And those who do feel they have the freedom to participate should not ridicule those who don’t.” In other words…these are issues that are left up to each individual and God alone. The balance to all this is that we are encouraged to ask ourselves: “Is this something that Jesus would allow me to do? Will this pull me away in my walk with God, or will it help:” That may differ for different people. “Whether you eat, drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.”

Excellence

We have a deep desire to move toward excellence in everything that we do as a church. One reason for seeking excellence is that if we are serving God, He deserves nothing less than our best possible efforts. Also, excellence sends a message to the watching world as to what we value as important. We desire to have an eye on excellence but not perfectionism. All aspects of the church’s ministry are open for review and discussion. Nothing should be insulated from fair and purposeful review. We want to identify weaknesses and develop practical and efficient solutions to glorify God with excellence.