Inclusion Statement

At Clarkston United Methodist Church, we believe our mission is to help connect people to each other and to God. God's grace and love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, provide the foundation for our ministry. We believe every person is a child of God, and every person is invited to know God's grace. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

We welcome all persons to our church without regard to age, race, gender, ethnic or cultural background, national origin, economic condition, marital status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or any other means people use to categorize God's people. We recognize that there are differences among us, but we believe that we grow in grace when we embrace diversity in our circle. We are united by our love for Christ, despite the issues on which we may disagree. We believe we can love alike, even though we may not think alike, and we seek to welcome all people into Christian community and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Beliefs

We believe in God who is the Creator of all life. We believe God is more than we can fully understand or capture with our definitions. However, we do know the part of God who has sought to have intentional relationship with all of humanity since the beginning of time. We believe Jesus Christ was God who came into the world in human form. This Incarnation of God gives us the example of what our life could be like if we lived in holy relationship with God, others and ourselves. We believe that in his death Jesus destroyed the power death ultimately has over us and his Resurrection gave to us abundant life in this world and eternal life. In Jesus we can best know who God is and discover the purpose and possibility for our life.

We believe we are created to live in holy relationship with all people. Jesus called his followers to come together to serve as the hands and feet of Christ in the world. Our faith was always intended to be a communal faith. Each of us has a personal faith to live that thrives best when it is engaged in a holy community focused on Christ. That community is the church, wherever it gathers and was birthed and is now empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s active presence and power in the life of the church and in the world today.

We are a people of grace. Following in the example of the Wesleyan tradition, we seek for grace to be the defining characteristic of our witness. We stand for what we believe with passion and allow grace to bind us with all whether they agree with us or not. We believe in inclusion instead of judgment and holiness over self-righteousness. Our task as the church is to serve God, live as disciples of Jesus Christ and create holy spaces for others to grow in their knowledge, experience and relationship with Christ. We work for justice in the world for all people.

We believe the Bible is God’s gift to us for knowledge, discernment and witness for our faith. When we encounter theological differences among Christians, we bear in mind John Wesley’s approach, “in essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” We affirm the United Methodist teaching of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience as our sources of Authority for the church and for our personal lives. The purpose of our life is found in two verses of Scripture. The first is Micah 6:8 (…what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God) and Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

We believe our mission is to help connect people to each other in faith and all to God. We seek to live according to our Core Values. We humbly treasure our United Methodist connection and seek to fulfill our denominational mission of, “Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World”.