Sometimes when you visit a church, the first thing you read on their welcome material is “What We Believe”—and it's usually a doctrinal statement. That's good, except it may be perceived as “what it takes to get in our door”. Perhaps we use doctrine for exclusional barriers rather than transformational truth. We think that's backward.

In our post-Christian, post-modern culture, we want to communicate what we value first, things like authenticity, generosity, transparency, acceptance, a heart for the poor, people who don't yet know Jesus, diversity, servanthood, Biblical truth, simplicity, worship, a dependency on the Holy Spirit and so on.

In the big picture, a church's belief system is really defined by what they spend energy and money on, what their mission and vision is, the atmosphere in which they do ministry and, of course, what their theology is.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
(Luke 4:18-19)