Beliefs? Now that would be pretty amazing if you could find on one webpage what beliefs hundreds of interesting, diverse, real-life people at one church would share-- so this isn't it! In fact, we prefer to refer to "what Kaw Prairie teaches" or, at most, "what most Kaw Prairiers probably believe." So, with no claims to lock-step doctrinal uniformity, here's a brief glossary of some common Christian terms-- and how at least our teaching pastor would explain them at Kaw Prairie.
God the Father
There is only one God, and in the Christian scriptures God describes Himself as having three persons, or personalities -
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - each full of Godness, yet each different from and distinct from the other. All people are created in God's image (male and female both, God says, so the 'He' pronoun that God picked for Himself might have been a flip of a Divine coin!) So, in a profoundly parental way, we matter deeply to Him. He created us each with purposes and futures that, if followed, would bring us delight and fulfillment. He also created the earth to be our physical and social home--a place where He longs for us to walk in harmony with Him, and in respect and compassion for one another.
Sin & Forgiveness
Inevitably, though, Adam & Eve (literally, 'the man' and 'mother of all living') and everyone thereafter, ended up very quickly spiritually separated from God our Creator. Because of our chronic, innate disloyalty, disobedience, and self-centeredness (that is, Sin), we really do deserve the condemnation and anger of the Father we have betrayed. However, because of His incredible grace and love and the free-will self-sacrifice of His anointed Son, Jesus of Nazareth, God joyfully offers us the forgiveness that leads to salvation with earthly peace and purpose AND eternal life. God gives that 2-for-1 gift to anyone who can be honest enough to admit they need Him, humble enough to want to follow Him, and trusting enough to really believe in Him. Salvation cannot be earned through human effort or even huge personal goodness—but only by gratitude for a gift we could have never obtained on our own.
The Son
Jesus of Nazareth (Joshua to His friends), God’s anointed Messiah, was born to the young virgin Mary, taught in parables, healings, and miracles about God’s Kingdom, and lived a sinless but deeply connected human life. He fulfilled God the Father’s sacred need for justice by volunteering to be the one to pay the price for our chronic human sin, dying innocently on the cross. And by being raised from the grave by the power of God, He also overturned Satan's claim to see us in the grave. Jesus will return to consummate history, 'judge the living and the dead' as the Creeds say, fully redeem our fallen world, and fulfill the eternal good and gracious plan of God.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit convicts us of our brokenness and distance from God, and draws us to Him and the salvation He offers. It makes its home within all believers and through mysterious promptings, gentle assurances, and clear lessons, it helps us grow spiritually mature. Its goal is to advocate for us, comfort us, and inspire us to lead Christ-like lives and use our spiritual gifts to build the church and serve to a lost, needy world.
The Church
The Biblical paradigm of the church is a local community of believers who gather for worship, prayer, instruction, encouragement, mutual accountability, and hanging out with each other. Willow Creek's Bill Hybels sums it up simply: "The local church is the hope of the world." Through their local church, Jesus-followers invest time, energy, and resources to fulfill His great commission — reaching people far from God and growing them into fully devoted followers of Christ. All believers in Jesus Christ, bonded personally to Him as individual believers and through the local church, are also members of the one Church universal (katolikos in the original Greek). Christians in the church live out Jesus’ call to spiritual unity by welcoming, respecting, and loving one another across racial, ethnic, gender, cultural, generational, socio-economic, denominational and national lines. Our lifestyle of obedience to Christ supersedes all earthly loyalties, churchly doctrines, and national patriotisms, and forces us out of our comfort zone as we give Christ-like honor even to people our society considers ‘undeserving.’
The Bible
The canonical (approved in ancient times) Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, a.k.a. the Bible, are together God's unique revelation of His heart, law, and purposes to the people He created and redeemed. The Bible is the eternally true and inspired Word of God, and the supreme authoritative guide to all human life. No other writings, however helpful or inspirational, are vested with this ultimate divine authority. We teach from it humbly—aware of the possibility of our own error, and pained by the error of interpretations that precede us. We know that even among Christians, fervor is not the same as faithfulness; and in contrast to the popular human enterprise of critiquing the Scriptures, we long to have Scripture critique us, instead.
Free Will & Eternity
In order to make human life truly meaningful and to give His creation integrity of life and purpose, God chose not to make us puppets, but to give us free will, by which He allows us to each make the decisions which impact our world and govern our individual futures. At the final judgment, God will honor us by respecting our life’s decisions: Those who desired to live apart from God by rejecting His offer of reconciliation, will find their desire for separateness and independence honored for all eternity as they dwell forever apart from God. Those who chose to accept the precious, self-sacrificing gift of a reconciling God through His son, Jesus Christ, will continue to receive that gift—an undeserved eternity of closeness to God.