This is an attempt to capture a bit of the sol café’s history. It will not capture everything. It won’t even come close.
This is not a statement of faith. This is not a statement of vision. It is simply our story.
This is our foundation:
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
— Matthew 22:36-40
This is our structure:
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
— Matthew 18:20
This is our story…
- all of this could be wrong
- Church is not the building
- church should not be a barrier to people getting to know God
- don’t do anything just because “we’ve always done it that way”
- God leads this church, not us
- manifestos are suspect
- our whole life is an act of love
- our whole life is an act of prayer
- our whole life is an act of service
- symbols are powerful and necessary, but don’t confuse them with what they represent
- This is not the “right” way to do church, but it is right for us
- We ask questions like… “am I the only lazy Christian?”
- We ask questions like… “how have I been shaped? And how will I be shaped?”
- We disagree, but….
- we don’t get why the world is so screwed up
- We don’t give pat answers
- We don’t want people to just feel welcome, we want them to feel like they belong
- we have more questions than we have answers
- We operate on “Mexico Time”
- We question leadership… of the human variety
- we see in colour, we see in greys, just not in black and white…
- we think churchenese should be a dead language
- we want to make the world a better place