COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY AS RHYTHM

We believe when you look at the early church, it is much more than a place you “go.” Church is a people who do life together, love one another, and work together to serve each other and their city, sharing the good news of Jesus. In the Bible, the church is often spoken of as a body. This picture paints the very reality that we are all interconnected and lean on one another in life, much like the human body. While none of us are perfect, we rely on a perfect Christ with an abundance of grace to hold us together. At Olympia City Church, we believe community should be intertwined in our ordinary rhythms of life. We share meals, serve together, pray together, celebrate and cry together.

[Acts 2:42-47; 1 Corinthians 12:1-27]

COMMUNITY AS IMAGE

God is Trinity; God is one God who outwardly exists as three persons in eternal, perfect community. We believe that we did not create God but rather God created us. Unlike the animals, which were made according to their “own kind,” we were made in the “image of God;” in His own likeness. He loved us and took the time to form us with his hands and not his words like the rest of creation. After God had created us, he said his creation was “very good.”

Because we are made in the image of the Triune God and created to reﬂect this image, we understand that humans are not only designed for community, but long for it. We are God’s image-bearers, and much of the loneliness and heartache we feel in life is a result of sin tarnishing this image. We love Olympia and seek to redeem community by making ways to meaningfully connect with others.

[Genesis 1:26-31, 2:4-25]

COMMUNITY AS FAMILY

Adam’s sin in the garden after our creation marred our image of God. Therefore, we needed a perfect sacriﬁce, a Rescuer, to restore our relationship with our creator. Our Rescuer is Jesus, and because of him we are adopted into the family of God. This is the Good News, the Gospel! Through faith in Jesus alone, we believe we are God’s chosen people, brothers and sisters in His family, set apart to live in a way that the world can see what he is like. As God’s family, we see it as our responsibility to personally care for the needs of one another, both physically and spiritually.

As God’s children, Jesus commands us to love one another. He said that the way the world would know we were His disciples was by our love for one another. Loving one another, as Jesus exempliﬁed, shows the world who God is and what He is like; it gives evidence of the Gospel’s power to save. We believe that the best way to teach others to follow this command is to live it out by doing life together…a lot.

[John 1:1-2,11-13; John 13:34-35; Ephesians 5:1-2; 1 John 4:7-21]

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