Our Ethos
We know that the Church can be an instrument of harm. Many of us at Estuary carry fresh wounds and old scars from Christian institutions, dehumanizing theology, and poorly managed church conflict. We also know that the church can be a source of life, liberation, and love in the world. The convictions below express how we feel called to be the church in this particular place and time.
Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4). The church has a unique capacity to hold space for both raw grief and exuberant joy. Because God is with, and for, the poor in a unique way, the church centers, and advocates for, those who are marginalized by death-dealing powers. We are an equity-seeking people – believing that access to God’s table of belonging should be accessible to all.The prophetic church acknowledges and names what is real – both the really beautiful and really awful aspects of life. The church takes a sober look at suffering and expresses the pathos of God and grief of God’s creation. The articulation of grief pierces the veil of numbness and apathy that oppressive powers cultivate in order to protect the unjust status quo. This unflinching engagement with suffering does not overwhelm or mire the church in despair because the church also remembers the promises of God and the truths of our faith. The church is buoyed up, sustained, and energized by a joy that flows from knowing that God’s resurrection power is at work in the world and that Jesus is the power above all powers – ultimately triumphant over sin, evil, and death. The church functions as a prophetic witness.
As a Christian community, called to peacemaking, compassion, and hospitality, we affirm that people of any racial or ethnic identity, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, age, or economic status are to be celebrated and have gifts that are needed in all levels of leadership, including preaching and pastoring. People who identify as LGBTQ2S+ are invited to have the pastoral staff officiate their marriages if they choose. The church is affirming.
The church is a body of spiritual companionship.
We come alongside one another in the spiritual journey, discerning and bearing witness to God’s work of transformation in our lives. As we enter into solidarity with those who suffer we become a co-suffering people. We rejoice and grieve with one another, celebrating the life-giving gifts of life and grieving life’s losses. (Romans 12:15). We co-labour with one another and God as we pursue God’s dream of shalom in the world.Image: Detail from Road to Emmaus by Ivanka Demchuk
We help give voice to the sacredness of life by designing and officiating ceremonies. We mark sacred transitions related to life and death – births, baby dedications, adoptions, baptisms, graduations, home blessings, marriages, memorials, etc.The church is a community of ceremony.
The church offers a safe place to practice the ways that make for a more peaceful and just world. (Luke 19:42). The practice of peace is an artful endeavour, ripe with failure and grace. Rather than seeing failure as a reason for rigidity, punishment, and a source of shame, we seek to create a non-anxious environment of experimentation, gently re-orientating ourselves to the person and ways of Jesus. We live in a complex world and believe that an artful approach to practicing our faith enables us to hold complexity, paradox, and surprise with openness and courage. We acknowledge the similarities and uniqueness of everyone’s spiritual journey. Therefore, we respect the timing and specificity of each person’s walk as guided by their personal conscience and discernment.The church is a studio of shalom.
Image: Peaceable Kingdom by John August Swanson
Drawing widely from various sources of wisdom and expertise, we consult with a variety of people and organizations (Acts 7:22). Collaboration with one another is best for discerning the way of Jesus in any given situation, so we regularly make space for, and invite people to participate in consensus-driven decision making. We equip and empower the saints for ministry and are multi-voiced in our worship, believing that including perspectives from diverse social locations helps us all to see reality and know God more fully.We are guided by a Christian theological vision and while we seek to draw wisdom from a diversity of Christian thought, we stand in the specific tradition of Anabaptism. Our basic Christian beliefs are summarized in the Apostles’ Creed and we look to the historic convictions of Anabaptism as a guide for faithful living. Rigid adherence to Anabaptist emphases is not required. We lift up these emphases for consideration as ways to embody the gospel while also connecting us to a specific stream of global Christianity.The church is cooperative.
The church should be trauma-sensitive.
Jesus and his disciples were impacted by spiritual abuse and experienced religious trauma. The cross, the martyrdom of our spiritual ancestors, and our painful experiences in toxically rigid faith communities remind us of how religious institutions can wield power in harmful ways. Therefore, we strive to use power in a non-hierarchical manner, by exercising non-coercive leadership and cultivating a culture of invitation. (Luke 22:24-27). We strive to create an empowering environment that helps people who have been in disempowering spiritual communities, to recover their agency in discerning the work of God. We respect people by clarifying the church’s expectations and clearly communicating shared beliefs. 
Christianity is a religion anchored in the incarnation – the belief that the image of the unseen God became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14, Colossians 1:15). Despite this affirmation of the goodness of Creation, bodies, and matter, other cultural influences (e.g., docetism and purity culture) have caused Christians to denigrate, dismiss, and doubt our bodies. The female body in particular has been subject to domination, obsession, and overreach. Too often Christianity has been reduced to giving mental ascent to a rigid set of doctrinal beliefs that have little to no influence over how we live as embodied beings in a physical world. However, the witness of Scripture teaches us that we believe, love, and follow Jesus with our bodies. (1 John 2:3-6). We believe the body should be a source of wisdom more than a source of shame. Therefore, we seek to re-incarnate the Christian faith through our embodied presence to each other in concrete actions of kindness, compassion, advocacy, and hospitality. We reclaim the central place of the body in our worship, work, and witness. The body is one of the main metaphors that the apostle Paul uses to describe the Jesus community. (1 Corinthians 12). Each member of Christ’s body is unique, gifted, and contributes to the common good of the community. The body is an interdependent organism that relies and thrives on the participation of the parts and shares in the suffering and joy of each part. The members of the body that are devalued, denigrated, or sidelined by society, are given special honour and value in the body of Christ. Therefore, we believe that the body of Christ, as expressed in the local church, is a place where interdependence, God’s preferential option for the poor, and solidarity are embodied.The church is the body of Christ.
Image: The Best Supper by Jan L. Richardson
At this juncture of Christian witness on these lands, it is critical for church communities to understand and untangle the embedded aspects of colonialism’s impact on healthy relatedness to the land and indigenous peoples.We hope for a church that will seek right-relationship with the Tsawwassen First Nation and Musqueam Indian Band, and experiment with sustainable ways of living, working, and playing in the watershed. The church needs to decolonize discipleship.
The church is nonviolent.
Nonviolence is more than a renunciation of violence. It is a commitment to assertive peacemaking, radical enemy love, the pursuit of justice, and the creation of life-giving economic practices. Given that historically the theology and practice of Christian nonviolence have often marginalized and muted the voice of victims of violence, a peacemaking church seeks to learn from the tradition of Christian antiviolence which centres the lived experience of victimized people (e.g., women, people of colour, people who identify as LGBTQ+). Christian antiviolence embraces a wide definition of violence that includes violations of bodily, environmental, or psychological integrity. Because violence is often committed at both an interpersonal and systemic level, antiviolence work requires an intersectional analysis of violence that examines the multiple ways that various powers often conspire to cause harm. The tradition of antiviolence is committed to interrogating Christian theology to discern if and how it is being used to legitimize or energize violence. The church welcomes critique and practices self-reflection to identify and reform teachings, practices, and structures that support violence.
The church seeks to help repair our ruptured relationship with the more-than-human world.
Christian theology has often been used to justify humanity’s domineering and extractive relationship with the more-than-human elements of creation. This has contributed to the climate crisis that threatens the livability of the planet for many species – including humans. While adaptive and corrective responses to climate change are complex, the church can play a role in helping people live into a loving, cooperative, and reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world. This relationship of mutuality is the foundation of a more peaceable existence for humans as part of God’s good creation. God speaks to people in and through the wilderness and both people and the planet are transformed as they experience the peace of Christ in right-relationship with one another. By regularly gathering outdoors, and learning to deeply listen to God and more-than-human kin, we allow Christ who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17) to repair our relationship with the earth. This is how we become the children of God that creation longs for us to be. (Romans 8:19).
We are committed to the art of communal discernment which rejects hierarchical decision-making and embraces power analysis, self-reflection, prayer, and group consensus. When faced with important decisions we ask, How might we faithfully follow God? What is the Jesus-way forward?, and Where might the Spirit be leading in this particular circumstance?