In the very beginning of the Bible, one of God’s first acts is to bring order out of chaos.

God’s creative act did not abolish chaos, but instead brought forth life where bringing order out of the disorderly is a constant process. As human beings, we do this daily when we establish routines and schedules to help us navigate our time: When we create homes with things in certain places. When we tend to yards or gardens. When we participate in sports, civic organizations or church. We are constantly in the process of ordering our lives.

There is also a spiritual component to this ordering—a universal longing in each human heart to bring more understanding to the questions of who God is and who we are in relationship to God. Part of the spiritual work of ordering is this continuous process of building frameworks through which we can talk about, understand and encounter and orient our lives around the Divine.

An Open congregation

As part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ),  SumnerFCC has a rich tradition of orienting lives around Christ through the belief that Jesus as Christ has the power to reconcile and transcend our differences in order to bring us together as one.

As such, we practice openness in how we orient our lives together:

• An openness at the Communion table where weekly we celebrate the life, death and resurrection of Christ and invite all believers to participate…
• An openness that welcomes questions, doubts and wondering as part of this continuous process of orienting our lives around Christ.
• An openness that prizes the sacred Word of Scripture and the teachings of traditions with an eye toward questions that cannot be easily answered and with a Spirit of welcoming a God who is known and yet cannot be fully contained.

All Means All

Everyone is welcome at SumnerFCC — without exceptions — because we know that this work of orienting our lives around Christ cannot be done alone or in an instant moment, but rather in the presence of others over the span of a lifetime. We are all pilgrims walking in this way.  Come and join us on the journey.