Rooted and Grounded in Love
Our church vision is: “rooted and grounded in love, we seek to grow up together into the fullness of Jesus.” Taken from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, this vision describes the invitation to become a disciple and how our discipleship deepens and matures.
As followers of Jesus, we are committed to deepening our own life with God. We want our roots to burrow deeply into the reality of God’s unending love, so that the shape of our lives and relationships look and feel like God’s own love, and that we can give that gift of love away to our family, friends, and neighbors.
The vision statement for our discipleship is part of Paul’s prayerful dream for the church in Ephesus, for whom he prays:
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)
This prayer creates a frame for us to think about our own life and practice of discipleship today. Taken in three parts, here is how we want to practice life with God together:
Rooted and grounded in love
The foundation of all discipleship and the goal of life with God is to fully and freely embrace the love of God. Everything we do and say is rooted in the reality of God’s infinite love, which we know supremely through God’s embrace of us in his son, Jesus. With Jesus, we want to learn how to be deeply rooted in God’s love, learning how to love God in return and how to love others without fear or hiding.
We seek to grow up together
In Paul’s prayer, he hopes that from the strength of knowing God’s love the disciples can grasp something that cannot be grasped; to know something that surpasses knowledge. Paul shows us that the life of a disciple is not simply an arrival; it is a continuous unfolding and growing up to see more and more of God’s goodness, truth, and beauty.
Into the fullness of Jesus
We proclaim that Jesus is fully human and fully God, and that in Jesus “the fullness of God” dwells. Jesus teaches that he came to give us eternal life, which is another way to describe an abundant, overflowing life because it is life with God. Jesus teaches us that he wants to share with us what he has always had: the love and joy of God that have always been and will always be. Following Jesus is so much more than we have been taught—it is nothing less than to be filled with the fullness of God’s own life, just as Jesus is.
