We love parks. Parks are generally beautiful. Parks are social & cultural hubs in neighborhoods, and sometimes for an entire city. All kinds of people come to parks. People who wouldn’t normally see one another are all mixed up together, eating, playing, learning, and living. These spaces serve many different purposes in cities, but they all start out as a plot of land- a piece of land reclaimed, renewed, transformed, and placed strategically in a city. It can be a place of renewal and a place of celebration for all the diverse people who live obliviously squished together in the city.

That’s precisely the kind of church Park Church aspires to be. A community of people reclaimed in Jesus Christ through the gospel, transformed by that same gospel, celebrating the glory of God in the Gospel, and seeking the good of the city. The kind of church that affects everything. The kind of church where people from all over the neighborhood and city gather. The kind of church whose existence demonstrates the life that the gospel creates.

We hope to create space in a city crowded with people and short on time for people to come and examine the gospel of Jesus Christ. A space for people to come and relearn what it means to live life together. A space where people can find transformation and healing in the historic roots of the gospel story. In a city filled with parks, we hope to be a community serving the city in ways such as these.

We believe that the gospel is the most wonderful news in the world. The God who made the world has acted decisively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to redeem that world- to save it and to save us. We also believe the gospel to be the most powerful thing in the world. It is not only an announcement of what God has accomplished in Jesus, it also is the means by which God is saving and renewing the world Christ has redeemed.

This gospel calls us, as a community, to two things:

First, it calls us to celebrate all that God has done in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This requires a confident confession of historic Christian orthodoxy and a desire to always seek reformation through the joyful and diligent examination of the Scriptures. We have found the Protestant Reformers as well as the English Puritans to be a great help as we seek to be faithful to what God has given us through those who have gone before, and avoid the constant temptation to join the cult of the new.

Second, it calls us to confess these truths in the midst of a culture dripping with despair and triviality. The news of the gospel has to be embodied and lived in the midst of neighborhoods and offices and, yes, parks. This means that our confession must be rooted in a deep humility as we love our neighbors and our city, serve those around us, and empathize with the questions of those who doubt the claims of the gospel. It means that we should be contributors to the culture in which we live, and not mere aliens unaffected by the concerns, stories, songs, and values of the people who surround us. Packaged answers, consumer-driven programs, and mere aesthetics will not suffice; and in the end the only answer to the triviality and despair which is claiming our culture is the authoritative and beautiful claims of the biblical gospel. Park Church will weep with those who weep, serve those who are hurting, patiently allow people to examine the claims of the gospel, and ultimately celebrate the gospel as it transforms and renews our lives and our city.