What's the purpose of a congregation? At FCC Redding, we believe it is to model life as God would have it in our world. We are guided by what is known as the Two Great Commandments: To love God with all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves." (Matthew 22:36-40) Certainly we do this imperfectly, but every once in a while we see "glimpses of eternity" break into our lives and the life of this church.
Loving God, for us, involves putting God first in our lives. How can anyone know what that means?
Well, this is what Jesus has done for us–he shows how to live in such a way that God comes first. So, we study the life of Jesus and look for ways to follow him more closely. We see him prefering serving others to being served, himself. We see him reaching out to the marginalized, the ostracized, the poor, and the most sinful among us. We see him healing and forgiving indiscriminately, knowing that God shows no partiality. We see him promoting love and care for all in a world that largely rewarded those who took all they could for themselves. We see him confronting the powerful in religion and government with powerful words of condemnation for ignoring others only to serve themselves. We see Jesus not wavering in his plea for a world lived in such a way that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We see Jesus taking his message all the way to the cross. It is one to die for.
Having shown us the way, we can now see how to "love our neighbor as ourselves." At First Christian Church, we try to be a people who serve each other and the larger community. We opperate a thrift store, Second Helpings; serve meals from the Hope Van, stock a food pantry in our building, and contribute to a dozen local charities who find housing for displaced families, shelter for the homeless, and protection for the abused. We believe this is the work of Jesus in our world.
We also offer within our walls a safe place for lesbians, gays, homeless folk, the religously confused and abused (how can we tell people they must agree with us when we don't agree with each other!), and mean it when we say, "All are welcome at the Lord's table." All means all. And if you are hearing impaired, we have a trio of ASL signers who will giude you through the service.
As I say, we are not perfect, but we strive to follow Jesus as best we can. We often fail, but now and then something happens, and we catch a glimps of heaven. If you drop in some day, you might catch a glimps yourself. We hope you do.
