About Journey Covenant Church

At Journey Covenant, our Mission is to journey together toward Christ-likeness by making Christ-like disciples who...

Worship→Connect→Serve

Worship: we open ourselves to love, celebrate and value God above all else.

Connect: we open ourselves to love, celebrate and value others in the church body.

Serve: we open ourselves to love others in action.

We love God and people.  Simply stated, our Path in making Christ-like disciples is: (1) People are encouraged to attend worship services; (2) People who attend worship services are encouraged to move to a Journey Group (small group); and (3) People in Journey Groups are challenged to serve others on a team (some teams serve the local church, others the community, and still others the world). 

Our Path toward Christ-likeness:

Worship Service→Journey Groups→Serve on Team

This simple Path creates deep, life transforming relationships and margin in our lives – providing needed time and energy to develop authentic loving relationships with Christ, family, friends and neighbors. 

Our purpose can be sumarized as BRING IN > BUILD UP > TRAIN FOR > SEND OUT.  

Our Mission is the groundwork for everything we do.  God is doing huge things for His Kingdom at Journey Covenant Church!

Affiliation and Affirmations of Faith

Journey Covenant is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church - a group of more than seven hundred and fifty churches in the United States and Canada.  Founded by Swedish immigrants in 1885, it is a voluntary covenant of churches committed to the affirmation of historical Christianity regarding the Bible as the Word of God and the only perfect rule for doctrine and conduct. The Covenant Church emphasizes the Bible's witness to new life in Jesus Christ expressed in a day to day walk with the Lord. 

The Covenant Church believes the Following

·  The Bible is God's message to us, the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine and conduct (2 Timothy 3:16)

·  Jesus Christ changes lives (John 3:3, 14:6; 2 Corinthians 5:17).  New birth in Christ means committing ourselves to Him and receiving forgiveness, acceptance, and eternal life.  It means being alive in Christ, and this life has the qualities of love and righteousness, joy and peace.  New birth is only the beginning.  Growing to maturity in Christ (Christ-likeness) is a lifelong process for both individuals and communities of believers.  God forms and transforms us – and it is through people transformed by Christ that God transforms the world.

·    We follow Christ’s two central calls.  The Great Commission sends us out into all the world to make Christ-like disciples.  The Great Commandment calls us to God and other people as ourselves.  We seek to carry out God’s mission both far and near – including sharing the story of Jesus with others, developing as Christ followers, and ministries of compassion, mercy and justice.

·  The church is a spiritual family of equals, confessing a personal faith in Jesus Christ and open to all believers (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).  The church is not an institution, organization or building.  It is a grace-filled group people Christ followers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ

·  The Holy Spirit empowers, enables and works in us to live for God and become more Christ-like (Galatians 5:25)

·  Freedom comes from Jesus Christ (John 8:31-32; Galatians 5:1) and it manifests itself in a right relationship with God and others.  This freedom is given to serve the community and the world.

The Covenant Mission

The Covenant Church seeks to form and nurture communities that are deeply committed to Jesus Christ and passionately engaged in Christ’s mission in the world. The purpose of Covenant Affirmations is to make clear the values and principles that have guided the Evangelical Covenant Church since its founding in 1885.

We are united by Christ in a holy covenant of churches empowered by the Holy Spirit to obey the Great Commandments and the Great Commission:

·  ...to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind

·  ...to love our neighbor as ourselves, and

·  ...to go into all the world and make disciples

What makes the Covenant unique from other denominations is the fact that while it strongly affirms the exploration and clear teaching of and obedience to the Word of God, it allows believers the personal freedom to have varying interpretations on issues of belief and practice where the biblical and historical record seems to allow for a variety of interpretations of the will and purposes of God.  We in the Covenant Church focus on what unites us as followers of Christ, rather than on what divides us.

For more, see the website for the Evangelical Covenant Church www.covchurch.org