First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa

The church is called to become a dwelling place for God’s fullness as believers receive the indwelling power and love of Christ and let it shape our message and mission.

As people transformed from a "before" state of division into an "after" reality of reconciliation with God and one another, the church is called to be a dwelling place for God’s presence, extending Christ’s peace to the world.

Our true identity is not self-made but God-given, rooted in being "in Christ," the promised Messiah. Believers are called to live into that identity through hope in resurrection, the inheritance of shared authority with Jesus, and access to God's transforming power.

God has chosen all believers before creation to be adopted into God’s family through Christ. We grow into this identity as ‘saints’ together as the messy, mixed, and Spirit-sealed community that is the church.

Stories of comfort, healing and hope in the Bible can guide us in developing personal and communal resilience.

Jesus makes God the Creator known, and the Holy Spirit interprets that which Jesus makes known about the Creator to the disciples and the church.

As we continue in the early church’s communal practices of Scripture, communion, fellowship, and prayer, we discover that our own community is powered by the same Spirit that filled the first followers of Jesus.

Jesus’ ascension shows that the kingdom is indeed being launched, but it’s nothing like the one people were expecting. Through the Spirit of God, that kingdom becomes a living and present reality in God’s people, so we can spread that rule everywhere we go.

Christ's self-emptying humility in Philippians 2 invites us to abandon our culture's songs of self-realization and achievement, and instead minister to others by lowering ourselves to meet them where they are.

We live in a society where the echoes of Athens still entice us to believe that we can shape the world according to our own sensibilities. Across the ages, Paul reminds us that God loves us far too much to leave us abandoned to a fractured world formed in our own fractured images.

Christ’s suffering makes a way out of the mess for us and sets us free to care for others.

Like Saul, each one of us needs to be confronted with a revelation from beyond ourselves and led by the hand into receiving the ministry of others and discovering new ways of seeing.

The great good news is not just that Jesus conquers the grave, it’s that he comes and speaks to us by name, seeking us out and inviting us to new life.

While the crowds in Jerusalem initially shouted "Hosanna" in hopes of a political conqueror, Jesus revealed a different kind of "upside-down" power: the power of humility, forgiveness, and sacrificial love.

During his trial, Jesus is revealed not just as the victim unjustly humiliated, but as the judge who judges humanity with kindness, mercy, and infinite love.

God’s perfect love meets us in our brokenness, freeing us from fear and forming us into a community that practices love imperfectly yet faithfully.

The kingdoms of this world are challenged and ultimately defeated by the truer kingdom of divine origin, which is represented by and ushered in by Jesus.

Because human beings are prone to follow, wander, and be led astray, we need a shepherd we can trust. Jesus is that shepherd: the one who knows us by name, lays down his life for us, and is the gate into abundant life.

More than a dramatic display of power, the raising of Lazarus is a sign that reveals the heart of Christ, who weeps with those who grieve, is not bound by our timelines, and declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Even in places that feel sealed and lifeless, his voice still calls forth life.

In giving sight to the man born blind, Jesus disrupts our usual conversations and challenges us to respond to what God is doing here and now.

Faith is an active, humble trust in Jesus’ life-giving power, even without visible proof. This trust is vindicated in Christ, the One who meets us in both our hope and our heartbreak.

In Christ, God seeks out our real, flawed selves and invites us to make Jesus the source of our lives. The living water Jesus offers satisfies our deepest longing and calls us into a transformed life beyond all established barriers.

Jesus invites us to surrender control so we can receive God's mercy and lovingkindness.

When Jesus cleanses the temple, he liberates us from “business as usual” and establishes a new reality where he is the true temple: the true intersection of heaven and earth.

Jesus is one with the Creator who transforms lack into abundance. When we “do everything he tells us," we experience transformation by God's renewing work in us.