Our mission is to eradicate homelessness in whatever form it presents itself.

We believe that everyone needs a spiritual home, an emotional home, and a physical home. It is our mission to help people find home in their lives, and to know that they are not alone. All created beings find their home in God and we believe God’s grace provides our ultimate sense of home through eternal and abundant living as promised by Jesus Christ. We are all connected as part of God’s creation. As long as homelessness exists in any form, we all suffer the pain and shoulder the responsibility.


The three houses in our logo represent the three forms of homelessness that we strive to eradicate. 

  • As Christians our spiritual home is called “church”. It is not simply a place of attendance and observation, but rather a place of belonging and engagement. In this way, church is our touchstone or “home base” from which we encounter the larger world. The church is a means of grace.


    This is why we are constantly inviting others to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ through the church. All of our church experiences, church groups, church programs and church buildings are tools for creating a community of faith. We are, therefore, compelled to care for one another as a congregation, but also constantly open the “doors” wider to those who are without a “church” home.

  • Human life is often torn apart because of loneliness and fear. When people are not emotionally safe they will lash out and attack without provocation. Others withdraw into states of despair and depression. Our experience teaches us that loved people love and hurt people hurt. When people have an emotional home, they thrive in their sense of well-being and vocation.


    As followers of Christ we seek to comfort those in distress, heal the brokenhearted, befriend the downcast, and welcome the stranger. We will stand in solidarity with those who have been neglected, abused, bullied, and oppressed. We will protect and advocate for those in our society who are most vulnerable including children and the elderly; the disabled and the disadvantaged. We will seek to share love, kindness, and mutual respect with everyone including those who are different than us. We will learn about and promote mental health and well-being.

  • The physical need for shelter is one of the most basic of all human requirements. A physical home is not a luxury but a necessity. Physical homelessness tears at the fabric of any society.


    The compassionate and justice-seeking example of Jesus drives us to eliminate physical homelessness. Many in our community and world do not have a physical structure in which to live. Some have lost their homes in natural disasters and untimely accidents. Some live in structures that are in total disrepair. Some have been driven out of their homes by war, conflict and violence, and all of us must be aware of the condition of our planet which we collectively call home. Through faith we must claim that we have the capacity and resourcefulness to address the problem of physical homelessness.




What We Believe



You are a child of God.

We believe that the Church has done a lot of harm to people by being judgmental or exclusive. At Grace Chapel, we believe that every person is made in the image of God and welcome here regardless of age, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, race, gender identity, or any other aspect of God's beautiful human creation. We welcome and affirm our LGBTQ siblings.


The founder of our Methodist faith, John Wesley, once wrote: "I have often repented of judging too severely, but very seldom of being too merciful." 


We do our best to live by these words.

Our Theological Journey

Faith is the basic orientation and commitment of our whole being—a matter of heart and soul. Christian faith is grounding our lives in the living God as revealed especially in Jesus Christ. It’s both a gift we receive within the Christian community and a choice we make. It’s trusting in God and relying on God as the source and destiny of our lives. Faith is believing in God, giving God our devoted loyalty and allegiance. Faith is following Jesus, answering the call to be his disciples in the world. Faith is hoping for God’s future, leaning into the coming kingdom that God has promised. Faith-as-belief is active; it involves trusting, believing, following, hoping.


Theology is thinking together about our faith and discipleship. It’s reflecting with others in the Christian community about the good news of God’s love in Christ. Both laypeople and clergy are needed in our theological task. The laypeople bring understandings from their ongoing effort to live as Christians in the complexities of a secular world; clergy bring special tools and experience acquired through intensive biblical and theological study. We need one another.

 

But how shall we go about our theological task so that our beliefs are true to the gospel and helpful in our lives? In John Wesley’s balanced and rigorous ways for thinking through Christian doctrine, we find four major sources or criteria, each interrelated. These we often call our “theological guidelines”: Scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. Let’s look at each of these.

  • In thinking about our faith, we put primary reliance on the Bible. It’s the unique testimony to God’s self-disclosure in the life of Israel; in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; and in the Spirit’s work in the early church. It’s our sacred canon and, thus, the decisive source of our Christian witness and the authoritative measure of the truth in our beliefs.

     

    In our theological journey, we study the Bible within the believing community. Even when we study it alone, we’re guided and corrected through dialogue with other Christians. We interpret individual texts in light of their place in the Bible as a whole. We use concordances, commentaries, and other aids prepared by the scholars. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we try to discern both the original intention of the text and its meaning for our own faith and life.

  • Between the New Testament age and our own era stand countless witnesses on whom we rely in our theological journey. Through their words in creed, hymn, discourse, and prayer, through their music and art, through their courageous deeds, we discover Christian insight by which our study of the Bible is illuminated. This living tradition comes from many ages and many cultures. Even today Christians living in far different circumstances from our own—in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia—are helping us discover fresh understanding of the Gospel’s power.

  • A third source and criterion of our theology is our experience. By experience we mean especially the “new life in Christ,” which is ours as a gift of God’s grace; such rebirth and personal assurance gives us new eyes to see the living truth in Scripture. But we mean also the broader experience of all the life we live: its joys, its hurts, and its yearnings. So, we interpret the Bible in light of our cumulative experiences. We interpret our life’s experience in light of the biblical message. We do so not only for our experience individually but also for the experience of the whole human family.

  • Finally, our own careful use of reason, though not exactly a direct source of Christian belief, is a necessary tool. We use our reason in reading and interpreting the Scripture. We use it in relating the Scripture and tradition to our experience and in organizing our theological witness in a way that’s internally coherent. We use our reason in relating our beliefs to the full range of human knowledge and in expressing our faith to others in clear and appealing ways.