St. John’s Values


Core Beliefs:

We believe …

  • Sal­va­tion is nec­es­sary, because human­ity has fallen from its cre­ated estate of per­fect rela­tion­ship with God.
  • That sal­va­tion is found in Jesus Christ alone, for He is the only begot­ten Son of the Liv­ing God.
  • The Holy Scrip­tures of the Old and New Tes­ta­ments in their entirety is God’s Word and is the stan­dard by which we are to order our lives, express our faith, and func­tion as a community.
  • That we, as part of Christ’s body (the Church) are com­mit­ted to wor­ship the Father by means of Word and Sacra­ment as we are empow­ered by the Holy Spirit.
  • Noth­ing of sig­nif­i­cance hap­pens in God’s King­dom in the absence of prayer. There­fore, we seek to make prayer a pri­or­ity ask­ing the Lord to lead, restore, heal and trans­form our lives, our churches, our com­mu­ni­ties and the world.

Core Val­ues:

These are essen­tial marks that shape our iden­tity and guide our actions:

  • Com­mit­ment to Jesus Christ: We believe that sal­va­tion is found in Jesus Christ alone. He is the only begot­ten Son of the Liv­ing God. Through Him, all who come to Him by faith and repent of their sins, receive for­give­ness through Christ’s death on the Cross and live in new­ness of life through the trans­form­ing power of the Holy Spirit. This new life of faith is to be marked by a joy­ful obe­di­ence to Jesus Christ, to God’s Word, and to the lead­ing of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 16:15–16; Eph­esians 2:4–10; 2 Corinthi­ans 5:21; Gala­tians 5:22–25).
  • Author­ity of Scrip­ture: We believe that the Holy Scrip­tures of the Old and New Tes­ta­ments in their entirety is God’s Word, and is the stan­dard by which we are to order our lives, express our faith, and func­tion as a com­mu­nity (2 Tim­o­thy 3:16–17).
  • Evan­ge­lism: We believe that we are to live our lives, to make dis­ci­ples, and to grow our churches in a man­ner that expresses the lov­ing and long­ing heart of God for those who are sep­a­rated from Jesus Christ and His Church (Matthew 9:12–13; Luke 15; 1 Tim­o­thy 4:1–5).
  • Authen­tic Rela­tion­ships: We are com­mit­ted to one another in a fel­low­ship which expresses the love, for­give­ness, and unity of God as revealed in the rela­tion­ship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are there­fore com­mit­ted to hold­ing our­selves account­able before God and to one another (John 13:34; 1 John 4:11–21).
  • Wor­ship: We are com­mit­ted to wor­ship in Word and Sacra­ment, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our wor­ship — in glo­ri­fy­ing God — is to be authen­tic and mean­ing­ful to our cul­tural set­ting while remain­ing within the breadth of our Angli­can Tra­di­tion (John 4:23–24; 1 Corinthi­ans 11:23–26; Acts 17:22–24).
  • Ser­vant Min­istry: We believe that every Chris­t­ian is cre­ated for min­istry, gifted for min­istry and needed for min­istry. We are, there­fore, com­mit­ted to equip, empower and release each mem­ber of Apos­tles to use their spir­i­tual gifts to glo­rify God and to build up the Body of Christ (Romans 12: 1 Corinthi­ans 12–14).
  • Sac­ri­fi­cial Giv­ing: We believe that we are to be gen­er­ous with our time, gift­ing and money as we share with those in need, sup­port the work of God among us, and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 John 3:17–18; Ezra 2:68–69; Acts 2:44–47). In par­tic­u­lar, we com­mit to strive toward bib­li­cal finan­cial stew­ard­ship [the Bib­li­cal stan­dard of the tithe].
  • Bib­li­cal Lead­er­ship: We are com­mit­ted to iden­ti­fy­ing and train­ing lead­ers who are com­mit­ted to Jesus Christ and to reach­ing their gen­er­a­tion with the gospel. This will require of them an authen­tic faith, godly char­ac­ter, and a servant’s heart (Luke 22:27; Romans 12; 1 Corinthi­ans 12–13).
  • Expec­tant Prayer: We believe that noth­ing of sig­nif­i­cance hap­pens in God’s King­dom in the absence of prayer. There­fore, we com­mit to mak­ing prayer a pri­or­ity — invit­ing God to lead, restore, heal and trans­form our lives, our churches, our com­mu­ni­ties and the world (John 14:15–31; Luke 11:1–13).

Core State­ments Of Faith And Practice:

What We Believe About The Bible

We believe in the faith that has been received and car­ried on by the one, holy, and catholic church through­out the cen­turies. Most impor­tantly, this includes a com­mit­ment to:

  • the Bible as the revealed Word and Will of God the Father, the ulti­mate and absolute truth by which we order our lives,
  • the truth that in the Bible, Jesus Christ is demon­strated to be the unique Son of God, in whom sal­va­tion is found alone, through His sac­ri­fi­cial death and pow­er­ful res­ur­rec­tion, and,
  • the truth that the Spirit of Holi­ness is fur­ther revealed to be the sole means of both engen­der­ing faith and keep­ing it alive.

Our His­toric Faith

The par­tic­u­lar state­ments of our faith as Angli­can Chris­tians are found in:

  • The 39 Arti­cles of Reli­gion (here).
  • The Solemn Dec­la­ra­tion (here).
  • The the­ol­ogy of the 1662 Book of Com­mon Prayer as “the gold stan­dard” of Angli­can wor­ship, defin­ing the mean­ing and struc­ture of wor­ship for Angli­cans (here).