Values: We all live from and toward what ultimately matters to us. Those often unspoken motivators are what we like to call values. They are the realized (not just idealized) “things that matter” that drive our lives forward.

If you want to know what matters to a community, simply observe them over time. If you retrace the trail of their words, time, actions and spending, you will find their values. Here are ours. We are confident that if you spend some time with us, you will see these thoughts embodied in the Origins family.

Story: God is authoring an epic. We see ourselves in a long line of humans participating in His story of creation, rebellion, rescue, restoration and victory. We are all part of this story, and life begins to make sense when we know where we have been and where we are going.

Imago Dei: God has placed His divine spark in the souls of all of his children. That image-bearing flame is intended to be reinvigorated through the person of Jesus and reflected into every corner of our human experience. Life is worship. There is no separation between the sacred and the secular.

Spiritual Formation: God’s work in our lives is a progressive movement. We grow up in God. Spiritual formation is the pathway by which we cooperatively work with God to be healed, liberated, transformed and empowered to be fully like Jesus in our everyday, walking-around lives.

Truth and Meaning: Truth exists, is knowable and is intended to be embodied in relational contexts. All truth is God’s truth and our pursuit is to discover it, know it and live in it. Truth happens when heaven and earth come together. Truth is therefore what you find in Jesus, who is the central point of that glorious convergence.

Family: We are all part of the Family of God. We are sons and daughters of God (not slaves) and co-heirs with Christ. We believe in loving unconditionally and that there is always a seat at our Father’s table. We believe that we were created to live deeply with one another, carry each other’s burdens, share our possessions, pray for and confess our sins to each other, suffer and celebrate together. It’s in these honest, loving relationships that God transforms us and truth becomes a reality. The way of Jesus cannot be lived alone.

Justice Demonstrated: Justice is setting things as God intends them to be through concrete action. In the Kingdom of heaven there are no orphans, hungry, thirsty, lonely or abused people. We create space for the Kingdom to come “on earth as it is in heaven” when we join the Holy Spirit in working to fight injustice in our world. We demonstrate Justice because it is the way of God’s Kingdom.

Mission: Jesus said we would receive the Holy Spirit and then go tell the world about Him. So we care about joining with God to declare the arrival of His Kingdom. We believe that God has chosen the Church as the primary means of His redemptive work in the world and take seriously His calling upon us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in bearing witness to the Good News of Jesus. The words of Jesus are life and we speak them freely.

Celebration: In anticipation of an Eternal Party we value celebrating, dancing, singing, shouting, feasting and simply doing whatever it takes to rejoice in the goodness of God with His people.