Our Mission
To reflect and serve God’s mission of love in our city and our world
Our Vision
We are disciples of Jesus Christ, growing in his likeness, reflecting God’s love in generous service to others, embracing God’s diverse creation, which we embody in joyful worship.
Our Core Values
GROW
We will seek to grow spiritually, committed to prayer, increasing in wisdom and knowledge through the regular study of God’s word, earnestly desiring to live like Jesus.
SERVE
We will serve God and God’s mission faithfully, sharing the Good News, every member engaging in meaningful ministry as disciples of Jesus Christ.
LOVE
We will love God above all else and love others as Christ loved us, seeking unity in our diversity, respecting others even when we differ, extending the peace of Christ to all.
GIVE
We will give to others for Jesus’ sake and support the cause of Christ with generosity, pursuing the discipline of tithing as modeled in Scripture.
WORSHIP
We will join in worship regularly and joyfully, in our assemblies and in our daily lives, praising God, confessing sins, seeking God’s help, thankful for God’s blessings.
Our Core Beliefs
Northside’s heritage is rooted in the fellowship of Christians generally known around the world as Churches of Christ. We are grateful for that heritage and honor its stories and traditions. Our primary commitment, however, is to God—to God’s heart, God’s word, and God’s ways. Our sustaining beliefs are rooted in him:
We believe in God, creator of the universe, the Father almighty, our lord and our redeemer.
We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s son, fully God and fully human, who lived among us, who pointed the world to the Father through his teachings, his power, his service and compassion, who embodied God’s heart in giving his life for the world’s sake, who was raised from the dead by the Father, who ascended to heaven and even now sits at God’s right hand, who will one day return to claim his own.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, God’s very presence and power living within and among us.
We believe that the church is a community of believers saved by God’s grace, transformed by Christ’s power, made holy by God’s Spirit, living sacrificially for the sake of others, called by God to serve God’s mission in the world.
We believe Scripture is inspired by God to reveal God’s ways, to teach us how to live, to point the world to Jesus.
These core beliefs are not stale doctrines to us. They are not propositions to memorize or slogans to inscribe on a church wall. Rather, we believe they are living truths that have transformed us and are transforming us still, day by day, into the image of Jesus.
God’s Story, Our Story
The heart of our story is that God loves everyone—every nation, every person—even in our sins, even when we have been an enemy to God, weak or ungodly. We believe that God loved the world so much that he gave his only son for us, that those who believe, who trust in Jesus, who die to themselves and give their lives to Jesus, will themselves be given life—abundant life here and now, and life with God eternally.
We believe this new life is given to us not because we deserve it, not because have understood everything correctly or have done everything rightly. We haven’t. We can’t. God offers this new life to us as a free gift.
We receive this new life by faith. We choose to trust God rather than ourselves. We confess we are sinners, that we have hurt God by our words and actions, that we are deeply sorry. And we state openly that we claim Jesus as our Lord. We believe that faith is fundamentally a surrendering. In faith, we choose to no longer be in control, but we surrender to God our lives and our futures.
We believe baptism is a crucial part of our surrender. The work of baptism is God’s work, not our own. There is nothing we could do to merit our own salvation. It is God who is working in us. In baptism we die to ourselves, joining Christ in his death, washed in his blood. We are buried with Christ and raised from the dead just as Christ was raised so that Christ’s power, not our own, controls us. In that sharing of Christ’s death and resurrection, God grants us forgiveness of sins and gives to us the Holy Spirit, God’s powerful presence dwelling within us, comforting us, helping us.
Dying and rising with Jesus is the heart of our story. It’s why the Lord’s Supper is so important to us. Every Sunday, we participate in Christ’s death as we take of the bread and drink from the cup. The Lord’s Supper, like baptism, is a source of power and life rooted in Christ’s death and resurrection.
This dying and rising is also the key to our discipleship. We believe Christ not only modeled obedience to God and sacrifice for others, he has given us the strength we need to die to ourselves and die for the sake of others.
This is our story. It comes from both the witness of Scripture and the experience of our lives. Our desire is to tell this story of God’s amazing love to others, to serve the world as ministers of reconciliation, marked not by judgment but by hope, generosity, self-sacrifice, and grace, modeled and empowered by Jesus himself.
This is what we believe. This is our heart and our commitment.