Real People Looking to the Real Jesus for Real Change
Real People
One of the major values of people in our current culture is authenticity. It’s also a major Biblical value. Scripture is full of people who are honest about their own struggles. Our “real” selves come in contact with the living God, so we encourage people to be honest about who we really are – our real hopes, fears, and struggles as we live life in a fallen world and encounter God in the midst of it.
Real Jesus
We believe that God has revealed Himself in human history through Biblical revelation and through the Incarnation – taking on flesh and walking among us. In Jesus, the invisible God is made visible. We want to bring our real selves into contact with the real Jesus – the Jesus that we find revealed in the Scriptures, not our own versions of Him. In particular, we want to disentangle ways that our culture has falsely westernized and southernized the Biblical Jesus.
Real Change
Each of us is, in the words of C.S. Lewis “a glorious ruin” – divine image bearers committed to a life of self-protection and fierce independence from God. We expect people to be real sinners with messy, complicated, destructive lives. But we also expect an encounter with the real Jesus and the gospel of grace to give people real hope and produce real transformation in their lives. The radical love of God expressed most clearly on the cross can transform any heart.