MISSION / VISION / VALUES
Mission
"EMBODYING OUR UNION WITH CHRIST.
PARTICIPATING IN THE RE-UNION OF HEAVEN & EARTH."
All of our identity, belonging, purpose, and meaning flows out of our UNION with Christ, as through him we are united to the life of God.
From that place of belonging we are invited to join with God in the work of renewing all things, here and now.
Vision
To be a spirit-awakened and vibrant church that is IN and FOR the city.
We want to accomplish this vision through focusing on 4 distinct passions.
All of our mission flows out of our UNION with Christ. The journey of learning from and being transformed by Christ is varied and life-long. Our desire is to create diverse and clear pathways and resources for deepening your allegiance to Jesus and his ways.
Jesus always creates space at the table. We believe that one of the best ways we can serve the city of Vancouver is to show hospitality to each other, and to all we come in contact with. We have a vision to be known as place where all of Vancouver has experienced the warmth of Jesus' hospitality.
This is where the strength and gifting of our community meets the deep need of the moment. We are acutely aware of the social/emotional toll that the last few years has taken on our community. When we think about seeking RENEWAL we feel called to use our talents and resources to care for the
social/emotional well being of our city.
Prayer is where we align ourselves with the heart of God and participate in the Re-Union of Heaven and Earth. It is where we "visualizes an alternative future to the one apparently fated by the momentum of current forces. Where we infuse the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present" * Prayer is essential to all that we do.
Values
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Kingdom Story
The story of the Kingdom of God frames our entire view of the past, present, and future under the rule and reign of Jesus Christ. We care about the story of God as found in the scriptures, and seek to orient our lives around Christ as he is revealed in that story.
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Contemplative Action
Our missional engagement in the world flows out of abiding in communion with God. We create space for silence, solitude and stillness in order to find our truest self hidden in Christ. It is from this place of belonging and belovedness that we connect to the heart of God and so move out in compassionate action in the world. In the words of Robert Mullholland, we are seeking to be "in God for the world," not just "in the world for God."
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Counter Formation
As followers of Jesus we are seeking to be formed as we take our allegiance to Jesus seriously. This requires a posture of humility and curiosity, and a desire to both reverse the effects of the world's formation, and be formed into the image of Christ.
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Compassionate Community
Jesus' plan for the restoration of the world is an ever-expanding diverse human community united in love to each other. But shared life in the community of Christ is messy. If we abandon the project at the first sign of tension, frustration or disappointment we are robbing ourselves and the community of the opportunity to grow. Therefore we commit to valuing community at all times, but especially when the going gets tough.
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confident wonder
We can have confidence in Christ and his present and future kingdom while holding that in tension with the wonder of all that we cannot understand and control. We believe that there are pitfalls in both rigid certainty and non-committal wandering. We are a community that values bold worship of what is certain, but we also aren't afraid to humbly declare that "we don't know."
Our story
Union Chapel started in August of 2016, but our history goes back much further than that. We became Union Chapel in 2016 when two churches on Main Street in Vancouver decided to become one church.
Calvary Downtown had nearly a 30 year history in Clark county, originally meeting as Calvary Chapel Vancouver. House of Providence was planted out of Imago Dei Community in 2009.
We live in a disjointed and broken world, so the idea of unity is truly counter-cultural. It says something when two churches believe that they are better together, rather than apart. Jesus longed for us to be one, with Him and with each other. We invite you to join us as we seek deeper union with Him, each other, and ultimately between heaven and earth.