In October 2024, our community of around 30 adults and kids began asking an important question: “What do we, as a community, truly value?” We recognized that our core values would shape everything — our decision-making, our mission, and our boundaries. These values needed to be clearly defined, mutually agreed upon, enduring, and, most importantly, glorifying to God.

We understood that we couldn’t simply “copy and paste” values from other communities. Instead, we needed to approach this process with careful thought, prayer, and humility.

Our first step was to create a general list of values, and then examine each one in light of Scripture. As we did this, several key themes began to emerge:

1. Christ-Centeredness: Jesus must be central and foundational. Who He is and what He has done must shape our identity and the way we live.
2. Countercultural Living: The way of Jesus often runs contrary to the values of our surrounding culture — where rising means first lowering ourselves, where humility precedes glory, and where true life comes through a kind of death to self.
3. Thematic Clarity: Many of the values on our list naturally grouped together into themes or categories, revealing deeper patterns of thought and belief.

In February of 2025 we entered the second phase of our core value development by examining our distilled list and asking, “If this is what Scripture says we should value, do we actually live like we believe it?” This was a time for honest reflection and mutual accountability. We were asking each other, “Do we really believe these principles?” and, if we do, “Are we willing to hold each other to them?” Having mutually agreed that we do in fact believe in these principles and agreed to hold one another to them we then entered a third phase of development in August.

A handful of our members then re-examined the language of our core values to ensure there was clarity, precision and that they in fact stood on a solid biblical foundation. After careful polish and refinement we published the first edition to our community in September 2025. These values serve not only as our guide but also as a common foundation for our community. Anyone who would seek to join us, after given time to think deeply through these values must be willing to agree to them and be held accountable to them.

We understand that this document is of human and not divine origin and is not to be treated as scripture. As need arrives we agree to re-examine these values and to adjust out of a desire to be faithful to the Word of God and the Spirit’s leading.