Partners
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In the opening of the Gospel of John, John writes that "grace and truth" have come in the person of Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Our era is one in which either the truth is reduced to a tool to bully other people, or the possibility of knowing the truth is rejected on grounds that it is divisive. The Journey rejects both options, affirming both the knowability of truth, the uniqueness of the truth of God's revelation in Jesus and as attested to in Scripture, and the insufficiency of knowing the truth of God apart from the grace and love of God.
Worship is not simply an activity that religious people engage in on the weekend. It is a fundamental disposition of the heart, a reality which is inescapable for anyone. It is not simply our knowledge that defines us as people--our loves and desires, our affirmation and pursuit of that which we call "good," shape our lives and our world. As Christians, we not only seek to encounter Jesus Christ in our corporate expressions of worship, we seek to make every aspect of our lives an expression of gratitude and adoration for his mercy and his grace (Romans 12:1-2).
We live in an increasingly individualistic world, a world where as sociologist Robert Putnam put it, we go "bowling alone." However, as Christians, we believe that love is the very foundation of reality, and that love requires another. The God who we worship is Triune--he exists eternally as a community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As those who are made in his image (Genesis 1:27), we recognize that our human flourishing requires that we live in communities of love and care. At The Journey, we want everyone to experience the joys, the sorrows, the gritty realities and lofty delights of human community. Our goal is to cultivate communities that are shaped by the love of Jesus (John 13:34) and that carry each others' burdens (Galatians 6:2).
When God created the world, he called it "very good" (Genesis 1:31). While it has been marred by sin, the created order is still "the theater of God's glory," as theologian John Calvin has put it. As humans who are created in God's image, we have been given the freedom and joy of cultivating this creation and of adorning it in ways that reflect its beauty and the beauty of the one who made it. Whether through art and culture, in our lives, or in our communication, at The Journey we strive to infuse everything we do with an unmitigated affirmation of beauty's role and importance in our world, and a sense of delight in the work of creation.
As Christians, we believe that God has not left his creation or his people alone, but that he has been intimately involved with it from the beginning. Jesus came to Earth on a mission: he came to restore and redeem humanity and the cosmos. While Jesus has accomplished his work, we believe and affirm that God has given his people the mission of bearing witness to this salvation and of acting as agents of reconciliation and justice (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). Like the God who saved us, our role is not to withdraw from the world around us, but to see the ways in which every part of our lives bears witness to the life we have in Jesus. Our mission as Christians is to be involved in every part of the world, even while not being conformed to it (John 17:14-16, Romans 12:1-2).
