We are a group of Christians who believe that God made and loves this world, and wants what is best for it.

But we also believe that the world is “fallen” in some way: a world that is a long way from what God made it to be and what He wants it to be; one look at the news makes it obvious that our world is very far from perfect.

This has happened because of the choices we humans make: the choices to ignore God, to turn our backs on each other and to pursue what we want regardless of the cost. We call this “sin”.

But God hasn't ignored this. He sent His Son Jesus, whom we often call “Christ” or “Messiah” (both of which mean “anointed one”). Jesus came to show us that things could be different, that we didn't have to live in these destructive ways.

But because this sin has such a hold on us (Christians as well as non-Christians), Jesus came to do more than show us a better way to live and treat each other. Jesus was killed by the Roman method of crucifixion: we believe that, somehow, His death broke the power of sin and made it possible for us to begin to live in the ways God wants us to live, not the ways we often selfishly choose. We also believe that in His death, Jesus took the consequences of our sin - the separation from God and His love that we had lived in for too long.

On the third day after He died, Jesus was found not to be dead any longer. His first followers proclaimed that He had risen from the dead, that they had seen and encountered Him, and that He was alive. Through this resurrection, we believe Jesus has brought the beginnings of a new creation into our world: an utter transformation of everything, so that all that is wrong and brings suffering, pain and death, will be done away with forever. We believe that God calls and invites everyone to be part of this new creation, to be changed by Him so that we're gradually freed from the power that sin has over us. He has given us His Holy Spirit - His very presence and power within us - so that we can respond to that invitation.

We believe God knows every part of our lives: not just the sinful parts, but the parts which are hurting, which are scarred by what's happened to us and what others have done to us, the parts which scare us, the parts that feel broken and which we don't know how to fix. We believe that in knowing God through Jesus, we can find a form of healing, peace and newness for all the brokenness we carry with us, something that no one and nothing else can give us.

If you'd like to know any more about this, then please contact us and we'd be happy to talk it through with you. The website christianity.org.uk also has a lot more information about what we've said here, and plenty more besides!