It is our conviction that what one does matters more than what one believes. We are all committed to seeking wisdom and truth together.

Members of this Church have the undisputed right to interpret the Word of God according to the dictates of their own consciences. The following Statement, therefore, is an illustration, not a test, of Christian faith for members of this Church:

We believe in God, our Creator and our Sustainer, who is made known to us through Holy Scripture.

In Jesus Christ God has come to us, shared our common lot, and taught us to love one another.

Jesus Christ calls us into the church to be disciples in the service of the human family, to transmit God's commandments from generation to generation, to be baptized as a mark of discipleship and forgiveness of sin, and to share in the Last Supper as a remembrance forever of God's goodness and mercy.

God accepts all people and offers to all people the ever-present comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Our values – what brings us together – were captured in a prayer written by our Senior Minister Emeritus, Phillip S. Washburn, in 2003.

Everlasting God, we have gathered here for reasons that are as many as are we.
We gather out of need, out of curiosity, habit, hope . . .

out of a desire to worship, to be with friends, to discover friends,
out of a need to find meaning, to be healed, to be relieved of burdens.
We come to be comforted, to be challenged, to fulfill obligations, to pray, to find rest for our souls.
We come for reasons grand and small, for reasons understandable and mysterious.
Out of the welter of our humanity we come . . .
come to meet you here . . .
we come desiring to come into your presence.

Accept, we pray, the conflicted truths about us
and help us to do the same toward others.
Release in us, we pray, the power that you have given us
to be the persons you created us to be.

We pray also this morning for our families.
We pray that it may be well with them
as well as with friends and neighbors, with community and country
and with the wider world . . . our families, all.

Gracious God, turn us toward your world that we might love it as you do,
and that our lives may become channels of grace in our deeds
as well as in our words.
We ask it in Christ's compassionate name.
Amen.