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One thing that makes The Gathering distinct is that we believe powerful religion is more than transmitting and believing a certain set of ideas or doctrines. Beliefs are important, but spiritual practices or disciplines transform and change us. Disciplined thinking and living help us to change our lives and the life of our world. At The Gathering, we seek to worship God by following Christ through certain shared practices. Those shared practices best describe the values of our community.
Worship expresses our love of God and also molds us into the body of Christ so that we can live in ways that change us, others and our communities. In worship we grow closer to one another, we offer our thanks to God, we are taught by God’s word, we experience the power of Christ’s death and resurrection at the communion table and we are blessed to go forth into the world. This regular act changes us, and we think for the better!
Two things are important here – we strive to develop our faith through study and learning and we do this not by ourselves but with others who are struggling with similar questions. We think that regularly asking questions about our faith, reading scripture, and talking about the intersections of faith and everyday life changes us. But we believe that God best forms us as we do this together and not by ourselves. Studying together opens us to the lives of others and builds the body of Christ by building friendships and relationships between people.
We believe that our world is addicted to being busy. The practices of prayer and meditation help us to stop so that we might wake up to God, a God that speaks to us through the world, through the voices of others, and through the interior of our souls. There are hundreds of ways to practice the discipline of prayer. We believe regularly practicing this discipline changes us into people more available to the desires and dreams of God and the need and pain of the world.
If scripture speaks clearly about anything, it speaks clearly of this: God has a preferential treatment for the poor, the alienated, and those marginalized by society. Jesus consistently teaches us time and time again that if we want to experience him, if we want to serve him, if we want communion with him, then we need to be in relationship with the poor, the prisoner, the hungry, the sick. At The Gathering we regularly practice the ministry of service. We understand this ministry not as a one way street; us helping people. Rather the practice of service helps us to build relationships with those we otherwise would ignore. We believe that in these relationships we experience Christ in a unique and transformative way.
By any standard we are a nation of wealth. By some estimates, the average person in our society spends 110% of what they earn. Often, everything we have and then some is being spent on ourselves. We recognize immense pressures individuals and families feel over matters of money. We also believe that money and faith are intricately linked. At The Gathering, we think following Christ means regularly and consistently giving away a portion of our money for the work of the church – the body of Christ in the world. We aim for 10%, though the regular practice of giving is more important than the amount given. Giving away a portion of our money forms us into people who are giving in all ways, people who recognize that our love is meant to be a gift to others and not a treasure that we hoard for ourselves.
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