Who we are & What we believe

• We believe the Bible to be God’s inspired word and our authority for life and faith.
• We believe in One God, eternally good, existing as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who is fully God and fully human.
• We believe in the deity and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
• We believe every person is made in the image of God and created to partner with God to establish God’s good, just and loving kingdom.
• We believe sin has tainted all aspects of humanity and corrupted God’s good creation.
• We believe salvation is the work of God to redeem and restore humanity along with all of creation. Salvation is freely given to anyone who personally trusts and lives in response to the birth, life, sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension and future return of Jesus.
• We believe in the imminent return of Jesus where he will make all things new.
• We believe God gives eternal life in the New Heaven and Earth to all who accept his grace in Jesus. He also grants to those who reject his grace an eternity separated from him in hell.

Bump into Jesus.

We begin with this simple promise: that every person who visits Monte Vista Chapel will bump into Jesus. It’s the reason we exist as a community of faith. By bumping into Jesus, we begin to understand and experience the deep love of God. In God’s love, we notice opportunities to be transformed into people who live and love like Jesus, by following Jesus. Everything we do flows from this promise.

Guided by our promise, we look to the future. It is here that our mission comes into view: We desire that our world would experience the hope and freedom that is ours through the grace of God in Christ.

We see this type of transformation in the life of John, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ (John 13:23) For John, being a disciple was a commitment to “live as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6) and a recognition that on his own, living and loving like Jesus was an impossible task. However, by experiencing the love of Jesus throughout his life, John came to understand this profound reality. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

At Monte Vista Chapel our desire is to build disciples (apprentices of Jesus) who encounter the love, grace, and truth of God, and as a result, are being transformed into the kind of people who naturally live and love like Jesus would if he were in their situation. Therefore, as disciples of Jesus who desire to build disciples, we make two promises.
Our promise to the church: to partner with people who desire to know God and become more like Jesus. (Christ in us)
Our promise to the world: we will do our best to love as we have been loved by God. (Christ through us)

The way we become people who naturally live and love like Jesus is through Spiritual Formation. We define Spiritual Formation as our continuing response to the reality of God’s grace shaping us into the likeness of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, in the community of faith, for the sake of the world. A practical tool to visualize our ongoing response to God’s grace is our Discipleship Conversation.

• Observation: Your daily life is the primary environment God will use to form you into the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus does. Our encouragement is to pay attention to your life.
• Invitation: God, your loving Father, knows the most helpful steps for you to take to become like Jesus, and in his grace knows when you are ready to take them. Our encouragement is to listen to God’s invitation.
• Cooperation: God’s grace is opposed to earning, not effort. As such, you play an active role in the process of becoming more like Jesus: Our encouragement is to intentionally cooperate with God’s invitation in your life.

If you are asking “How do I belong here at Monte Vista Chapel?”, our response is “Come have a seat at the table. It belongs to Christ, and we have a place for you”. However, if your question is “How can I take part in the life of Monte Vista Chapel?”  then we invite you to join us in our Shared Rhythm. 

As a local community of Jesus followers, we believe there are a few vital behaviors that lead to a healthy church.  Each of these behaviors is carried and sustained by Prayer. From a posture of being present with God, prayer forms the foundation of our relationship with one another and underscores how we live in our shared rhythm at Monte Vista Chapel. Our Shared Rhythm guides and reminds us why we…

GATHER: Because the Trinity forms us as people designed for relationship, we commit to come together regularly in tangible expressions of our church. (Hebrews 10:24) To do this we gather in groups both large and small to learn and teach, to study and celebrate, to lift each other up and be lifted up, to worship and be renewed by God’s glory. Gathering helps to form our community into the multifaceted reflection of Christ that God intends us to be.

GIVE: As God is the giver of all good things, we are invited to respond by reflecting the same spirit of generosity. (Malachi 3:10) Becoming regular, generous givers to our local church provides resources for ministry, deepens our faith in God as our Provider, and increases our capacity for joy.  

SERVE: One of the most important things Jesus taught his disciples was to serve one another. (John 13:1-17)  As we serve in the ministries of our local church, we become connected to others who share our passion, we get a front row seat to the expansion of God’s kingdom, and we find that our own passion for the local church increases. 

GO: Christ in us, Christ through us.  From the earliest accounts of Scripture, God’s desire was to bless his children in order that they would point others to the God who blessed them. (Genesis 12:1-3)This is  the same spirit that still compels us to open our homes to our neighbors and go to the furthest reaches of the world.  We want others to know the hope and freedom that is ours through the grace of God in Christ.