We believe the most effective way to help people follow Jesus is by helping them see Him clearly in Scripture. Because of this, we are an unashamedly text-focused church; we prioritize teaching through books of the Bible and structure our small groups and community around applying the Bible to our lives. You prick us, we bleed Bible.
We believe that college students change the world. Because of this, we are a multi-generational church that is intentionally structured and focused on reaching college students. The Ann Arbor area is home to over 80,000 college students, and our vision is to reach, equip, and mobilize the students of Ann Arbor to not only follow Jesus, but take his message to the ends of the earth.
We believe that the invitation from Jesus to “follow me” means everyone can come as they are but should not expect to stay as they are. We want to move toward Jesus in relationship with him, toward one another as family, and toward those in our city and across oceans as his witnesses. Following Jesus isn’t simply a declaration, but a posture of life that leads somewhere.
As followers of Jesus, we believe our identity and value isn’t attached to who we are, or what we have done, but instead is attached to what Jesus did on the cross in our place. Jesus didn’t come to save the healthy, but the sick. This means that our sins, failures, and flaws are not things that would keep someone from fitting into our community, but rather the very things that qualify someone to be part of it.
As followers of Jesus, we want to honor the city that we are in. Jesus Christ honored the broken world by taking up residence in it, caring for it, and valuing it—despite its brokenness. We want to take this same posture as a church. We want to dignify the skepticism and doubts of those in our city by addressing them seriously, working hard to present Jesus in the language of our city, and by coming alongside our neighbors to work for the common good of the place we all call home.
