Here’s what we mean:
At Greystone Baptist Church, everyone is welcomed, affirmed, valued, and loved. All are encouraged to participate fully, sharing all aspects of life and faith, embracing each other as image-bearing children of God.
We welcome those of all ages, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, ethnicities, socioeconomic conditions, levels of ability, household compositions, political affiliations, theological backgrounds, and beliefs. Everyone belongs.
We welcome your thoughts, ideas, experiences, differences, commonalities, talents, and gifts to cultivate kindness, courage, compassion, and hope. As a community of faith we are called to love God and love our neighbors, and we hope that you will join us as we pursue this calling.
When we say “everyone is welcomed, affirmed, valued, and loved” we mean:
When we say everyone is welcomed, affirmed, valued, and loved, we mean that we are a community that values the diversity and complexity of human experience. We recognize that we were all created in the image of God, Spirit-breathed from dust into life, and we all represent a tiny portion of God’s wildly abundant creativity.
We also know that in today’s world, many religious organizations say that all are welcomed – yet some are asked to change, or keep hidden important pieces of their identity. Here, all are truly welcomed and affirmed as God’s beloved creation. Because we are all created by God, in the image of God, we value each person as an irreplaceable part of our community. We covenant to love one another as God has loved us: extravagantly and without condition.
When we say “full participation” we mean:
Full participation at Greystone means we want to see you! Everyone is invited to worship together regularly and share in the Lord’s Supper. All are invited to teach a Bible school class, go on a mission trip, get engaged in worship leadership or an advocacy initiative, and to give financially to support the Church’s mission and ministry. We encourage everyone to get involved in missions and ministry. We seek to empower and equip people for faithful leadership at Church and in the world. Everyone who joins Greystone as a member is invited to experience baptism, serve on one of our Councils or Groups, have your wedding in the church sanctuary, and vote at a church conference.
At Greystone, we believe “every member is a minister,” and it takes all of us, fully engaged, to build God’s beloved community on earth as it is in heaven.
We welcome questions.
Greystone is a place that values questions. We recognize that growth and transformation are necessary to understand the mystery of God within the community of faith. To that end, we recognize there’s so much about God and one another we just don’t know. So we covenant to journey together as seekers.
We embrace difference.
We believe all of creation tells a beautiful story of God’s imagination. This story is incomplete without each of us, as we all bring a unique imprint of our creator. It is sometimes easy to create communities of sameness, but what we are trying to create is a place of belonging, where all kinds of people can come and find authentic community. Therefore, we seek to find the image of God in each other and ourselves.
We work toward transformation.
No one is perfect. No community is perfect. We know and recognize that we all have work to do. Scripture reminds us that “We see through a glass dimly” and “We know only in part.” We commit to lifelong learning and ongoing spiritual growth. Each of us has work to do on our own, and we have work to do together. We are all growing in our personal faith, and our community is growing in our shared journey.
The language of welcoming and affirming is often associated with churches that have taken intentional steps to love persons who identify as LGBTQ+. We spent a year educating ourselves (as a Church) on the intersections of sexuality, gender, and faith. We learned a lot and are continuing to learn. These words of welcome are one of the ways that year of learning shaped our community and called us to increase our hospitality and compassion towards all people. View our Sexuality, Gender, and Faith Education Forums and Resources here.
We engage in transformative partnerships with organizations that support refugees in their hope to find housing, community, and relationships. We partner with the Welcome House Network to provide hospitality, hope, and community; our missions and advocacy efforts support immigrants and refugees.
In the way of Jesus, we support non-violent behavior. In the wake of the Uvalde school shooting, we drafted the following statement against gun violence.
Considering recent and ongoing acts of gun violence in America, the Spirit of Justice Ad Hoc Team, with the support of the Diaconate and Leadership Council, has prayerfully considered how to respond. We are filled with grief and anger for the lives of children of God that have been taken by acts of gun violence. We are firmly opposed to all criminal acts of violence, and the structures that contribute to them. We know that the God who walked on Earth and continues to move in the world requires us to move as well. As Christians who have been called to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are taking action to show that love by addressing the crisis of gun violence in multiple ways.
Recognizing the need for ongoing transformation, we created the Spirit of Justice Group to address matters of injustice in our community and to educate our congregation.
Come as you are.
It’s that simple: COME AS YOU ARE. Bring your whole self, the messy stuff, and the neat stuff. Bring it all, and let’s be transformed by God, together.