Every church has core principles that shape and guide them. These ideas also often make a church unique. At Oasis we’ve tried to distill some of our guiding ideas into practical, tangible and simple statements we call the “Oasis Core Concepts”. These concepts have helped, and continue to help, shape and guide the culture, ministry and mission at Oasis.
- God is good and He dreams about people: We serve a God who is good and deeply cares about all people.
- The Gospel is Good News, not good advice: Advice is counsel regarding something that hasn’t happened yet that you can do something about. News is a report on something that has already happened which you can’t do anything about. All you can do to news is respond to it. Our union with God is based in the Good News of Jesus’ finished work… Period.
- We ARE the Church: We don’t just attend church at a given address. As a gathering of people we embody a movement that began 2,000 years ago when Jesus set the world on fire and then empowered us to carry on the Mission. We seek to dream about what He dreams about, value what He values and align our lives to build His Kingdom.
- We work from acceptance not for acceptance: We can be productive and effective on the outside because we have God’s peace and rest on the inside. Serving from acceptance is not inactivity, but Spirit-fueled activity.
- Miracles still happen: God’s spirit lives in His people. Therefore, we believe the miraculous can, and does, happen.
- Grace causes us to want to sin less, not more: A true revelation of God’s love and grace leads us toward “sinning less”, not asking how much sin we can get away with. This doesn’t mean we are perfect but we desire to experience freedom from sin and bring glory to God with our lives.
- Known for what we are for, not what we are against: We desire to spend our time lifting up the Gospel of Jesus rather than using our platform to proactively denounce or condemn. The best way to defeat the dark is not to denounce it, but to turn on the light.
- We like change, and we always will: We love change, but not just for the sake of change. We always want to openly embrace what God wants to do in and through us, as the Church because there are people who need to hear the Gospel and we don’t want our traditions to halt God’s agenda.
- The Heart of a teacher: We seek to foster simplicity and clarity by teaching the “why” and the “how” behind the “what” so people feel comfortable inviting their family and friends to any service or environment. We seek to clarify spiritual jargon or “Christianease” and we seek to be culturally relevant.
- Training soldiers is good, generals is better: We aspire to build leaders who have a heart to build leaders, who have a heart to build leaders, who have a heart… you get the idea.
- We treat all people as equally valid but not all ideas: Some Christians fear interaction with people who don’t believe as they do. They judge or withdraw, sometimes both. Jesus loved and respected people who didn’t know or follow Him, but passionately stood for certain ideas. We strive to do the same.
- “Personal responsibility” is not a dirty word: In light of understanding God’s grace, we passionately desire to grow, learn, and develop into the people God has called us to be.