Phillips United Methodist Church
The Mission of Phillips United Methodist Church is to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the modern world by sharing the story and hope of the Gospel of Jesus and God’s universal love.
The People of Phillips United Methodist Church will share the story and hope of the Gospel of Jesus by
* Feeding people spiritually and sharing Christianity
* Modeling bold spirituality and hospitality
The People of Phillips United Methodist Church will share God’s universal love in the modern world by
* Welcoming people of all backgrounds and generations
* Understanding, serving, and caring for our neighbors both near and far
* Loving one another without reservations, as Jesus loved us, in a fully accepting way
* Offering the kind of love and hospitality to all that is both life-giving and life-affirming
* Caring for God’s creation as those entrusted as God’s stewards
United Methodists – What We Believe
Our Faith Journey
Faith is the basic orientation and commitment of our whole being—a matter of heart and soul. Christian faith is grounding our lives in the living God as revealed especially in Jesus Christ. It’s both a gift we receive within the Christian community and a choice we make. It’s trusting in God and relying on God as the source and destiny of our lives. Faith is believing in God, giving God our devoted loyalty and allegiance. Faith is following Jesus, answering the call to be his disciples in the world. Faith is hoping for God’s future, leaning into the coming kingdom that God has promised. Faith-as-belief is active; it involves trusting, believing, following, hoping.
Scripture
In thinking about our faith, we put primary reliance on the Bible. It’s the unique testimony to God’s self-disclosure in the life of Israel; in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; and in the Spirit’s work in the early church. It’s our sacred canon and, thus, the decisive source of our Christian witness and the authoritative measure of the truth in our beliefs. We study the Bible within community using resources. We seek to understand the scripture in its original context and apply its meaning for us today.
Tradition
Between the New Testament age and our own era stand countless witnesses on whom we rely in our theological journey. Through their words in creed, hymn, discourse, and prayer, through their music and art, through their courageous deeds, we discover Christian insight by which our study of the Bible is illuminated. This living tradition comes from many ages and many cultures. Even today Christians living in far different circumstances from our own—in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia—are helping us discover fresh understanding of the Gospel’s power.
Experience
A third source and criterion of our theology is our experience. By experience we mean especially the “new life in Christ,” which is ours as a gift of God’s grace; such rebirth and personal assurance gives us new eyes to see the living truth in Scripture. But we mean also the broader experience of all the life we live, its joys, its hurts, its yearnings. So we interpret the Bible in light of our cumulative experiences. We interpret our life’s experience in light of the biblical message. We do so not only for our experience individually but also for the experience of the whole human family.
Reason
Finally, our own careful use of reason, though not exactly a direct source of Christian belief, is a necessary tool. We use our reason in reading and interpreting the Scripture. We use it in relating the Scripture and tradition to our experience and in organizing our theological witness in a way that’s internally coherent. We use our reason in relating our beliefs to the full range of human knowledge and in expressing our faith to others in clear and appealing ways.
About the United Methodist Church
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