Why Does This Exist?
Find in-depth details about our identity & Beliefs here:
To Reimagine Our Place By Reimagining the Church
The Church ain’t what it used to be. And neither is our place.
We’re asking, “What else could the church be?” so we can put a dent in the unfolding of a new future.
To Provide a Third, Public Space For Our Rural Community
Can we be a place for neighbors to gather, to find sanctuary, & to discover inspiration for wherever they go next?
“Let’s help put the world back together and make this thing good again. ”
To Foster the Health of Our Place
Because we believe that is the essence of the Church's existence. Call it The Kingdom of God or call it the shalom intended since creation, for thousands of years in an unbroken covenant tracing back to ancient Israel, there has existed a group of people seeking to use their collective life to heal the world.
To Cultivate Transformation & Impact the Future of Our Community
We want to help shape how our place lives by being a counter-culture for the common good; a tactile display of what it means to be human and what it looks like to build a better world.
What We Mean By “Health”
Health
Everything being the way it is meant to be.
Our definition of health includes every component of life that affects you. The Christian tradition has commonly referred to this as salvation; which is a global process and implies physicality, not just spirituality.
Health is where what Jesus called “The Kingdom of God,” God’s world, is made real and full.
Unhealth
ANYTHING THAT DISRUPTS OR DISCONNECTS THIS
Where heaven and earth, God’s dream and our reality, are pulled apart. That is what we are seeking to heal in all parts of our place.
“Seek the shalom of the place you live. For in its shalom, you will find your shalom.”
Health Includes
Individuals, Relationships, Community, Society, & Ecology
The smallest denomination of health is the health of an entire place and all its parts.
Explore our Founding Document for specific ways to measure each layer of health.
The Process of Health (aka — Sanctification)
Restoring the Image of God
At the Farmhouse, we emphasize four key components:
Acceptance — Acknowledging our worth & value as we are.
Vulnerability — Being honest with ourselves and others.
Contemplation — Acknowledging the ethical dimension of every part of our lives and considering change.
Responsibility — Seeing the possibility of writing our stories and being intentional about the process of change.
Reimagining the Local Church & Our Rural Place
The Importance of the Local Church
The Local Church is a body that exists for the health of the whole community.
We believe this vision of reimagining the church best happens locally.
If a church is a movement in the community that acts as an overarching, empowering guide for the whole place to flourish together while having a formative, public place for us to intentionally discover & become what we are meant to be, the our role becomes to tangibly enact the world as its meant to be in the small space where we are.
The local church has the most effective propensity to:
Form human beings
Nurture relationships
Support our communal & social organizations
Create belonging amongst neighbors
Grow our economic life to sustainably flourish
The Power of Rural Places
We believe rural places are important.
If economy is the life of a place and how it lives, survives, and flourishes together, then that economy will be impacted most by where the economy originates and is produced.
Rural areas, although often neglected and regarded as “behind” or “backwards” have immense power as the source of economy for all places because of our history, land, & skills.
We may be provincial, but we are where economy begins.
In our tradition, the greatest impact always comes from the wilderness – from the people & the places that are least expected.
The people who are nobodies in the places that are nowhere – this is where God’s movement always begins.
“A Local Church in a Rural area could be that which changes everything.”
These Things Are Really Important — Our Values For This Identity
Our Operating System
What Guides How We Function?
Explore
Learning to see the world more fully so that we might be able to live in it more responsibly.
Gather
Being together, in physical proximity, is more transformative than information. We emphasize the power of our presence.
Change
If our exploration & gathering are real, it will lead to transformation.
The Ground That Holds Us Together
Want to know the poetic essence of our existence?
Our Compass
What Values Guide How We Move?
Transformation & Progress
Creativity and imagination are at our center, but especially in how they manifest ethically, ecclessiologically, culturally, and contextually.
Belonging
We strive to embody “koinonia” – the ancient tradition of sacred community through interdependent relationships.
Real
In the age of spin, we want to embody what is real. We aim to be authentic, vulnerable, & transparent in everything we do and pursue what is meaningful over what is cool.
Roots
To know where you are going, you have to know where you have been. We seek to honor our heritage, memory, & history by being rooted in our story as humans, the Orthodox Christian Church, and our place. Read more about our church’s roots here.
Love
This is the central defining mark of our lives; the transcendent, selfless, empathic, other-centered way of being broken & poured in the pattern of Christ Crucified; to do no harm and do all the good we can.
Everyone
We seek to be inclusive to every human being, as much as possible. We believe that everyone is welcome to the table. It's not even our table and we aren't the ones who get to decide who's in & who's out. We're just glad that we, too, are welcomed.
Art
All forms of art have the capability to be the transcendent medium to help us grow, celebrate, & see the world. Art leaves room for mystery, proclaims beauty, & creates community more than any other form.
Wesleyan Tradition
From the Via Salutis to class meetings, the Acts of Christian Practice (devotion, worship, social action, social justice) to the Works of Piety & Works of Mercy, even the 3 General Rules or the world as a parish — Wesyleyanism is the inspiration that guides how we function.