Our Priorities & Values

Our Priorities

Loving God

We want to grow in loving God through obedience, sacrifice and worship. That means we will try our best to listen and obey when we hear him speak. It means we will give ourselves fully to him, live for him, and sacrifice for him, even when it feels hard. One of the ways we will regularly express our love for him in our gatherings is through singing intimate, engaging, heart-felt songs of worship that genuinely convey our hearts of love for him.

Loving Others

We want to grow in loving others in a way that reflects God's great love for us: genuine, lavish, and selfless. It's definitely easier to love God than to love other human beings. God is perfect, people are not. But Jesus told us that loving other people is equally important to loving God. He commands us to love all others, not just the ones we want to love. This can be the hardest thing we are ever called to do on earth, but it can also be one of the most wonderful.

Living it Out

All of this stuff sounds really nice, but it's useless if we don't live it out. At Clear River Church, we want to be known as people who really live out the message of Jesus not just on Sundays, but in our day-to-day lives. We want to be an authentic community of God lovers and people lovers who live out the message of Jesus and the Bible in such a real way that others would experience the love and mercy of Jesus.

Our Values

Pursuit of God

We want to know God, worship Him, and follow Him passionately.

The Bible

We believe that the Bible is God's word to us. We want to build our relationship with Him by learning His words and applying them to our lives. It is our standard for what we believe and for what we do.

Discipleship

We value being and multiplying genuine Jesus-followers.  We aim first to grow as disciples of Christ ourselves and then to make disciple-making disciples of others.

Cultural Relevance

We don't want people to have to enter a time warp to relate to our atmosphere, language, music, and teaching style.

Cooperating with the Holy Spirit

We want to do the things that Jesus did in our daily lives through the power of the Holy Spirit: preach the gospel, heal the sick, and set people free from all kinds of oppression. We don't believe that these things are just for a small group of "spiritually elite" people, but rather that everyone gets to play!

Silence, Solitude, and Prayer

We want to make room in our lives, away from the hustle-and-bustle, to spend quality time communicating with God and listening for his voice.

Integrity

We want to be open, honest, and transparent in our relationships, speaking the truth in love, and living a lifestyle that is consistent with our beliefs.

Generosity

Because God has been so generous with us, we want to be generous to others and give as freely as we have received.

Mercy, Compassion, and Justice

We want to have the same mercy and compassion toward others that Jesus has toward us. We value loving and serving the poor, oppressed, needy, and broken and pursuing Biblical social justice in our cities and beyond. We believe that everyone in the world should get a fair opportunity to live a meaningful, productive life.

Children's Ministry

We don't see our children's ministry as a babysitting service. We want our children to grow up having a real, vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. We want them to hear God's word at a level that they understand. We want to challenge them to grow as followers of Jesus. And we want to do this all in a loving, nurturing, safe, and fun environment.

Environmental Stewardship

God gave us one world and he told us to take good care of it. This is not a political issue, it's something that God commanded. We want to take that command seriously and be good stewards of His creation.

Simplicity

We believe that we should never do anything for "religious effect." Consequently, our church life is characterized by a natural, relaxed, simple, honest style that is free from hype and manipulation.

Church Planting and Missions

We value extending the Kingdom of God through planting church-planting churches in our country and abroad. We believe that the most effective and Biblical form of missions work is conducted through the local church.

Diversity and Multi-Ethnicity

We value welcoming people of different backgrounds and ethnicities into our community.