Values

Good Samaritan is a community that transforms lives. Many people trace their beginning in faith, or a renewing of their faith to our community. As our relationship with Jesus grows and is deepened, so this transforming power comes to transform the world around us - in the relationships that touch our own personal lives and also in the mission and outreach ventures that we work on together as a church family.

As we are inspired, provoked and challenged by our call to BE the Church of the Good Samaritan, we are constantly on a journey of transformation as we grow in our love of God and of our neighbors:

Transformed by Christ to Love God and Our Neighbor

Transformed

None of us have ‘made it’ in the business of being followers of Jesus. Everyone is a learner on the journey. Not just in our work with children and young adults, but across our whole life as a church we mean to grow together as disciples of Jesus.

We belong to a variety of small groups – mixed, men’s, women’s, college students, education focused. By belonging to a smaller group we are able to share our lives with one another and encourage each another in our faith.

By Christ

We love because God first loved us. It's through our relationship with Christ that God's love is poured into our hearts, and given us to share. We’re learning that both in word and deed our lives need to be shaped so that God’s love and the good things that we have received are not kept to ourselves, but are freely given just as they have been freely received.

We seek to be an open community who are always looking to welcome and embrace new people at whatever stage of faith or questioning, success or failure, happiness or brokenness we each face. Through our Alpha Course and Freedom in Christ Retreats we look to provide non-threatening environments in which people can explore the claims of Jesus Christ and the possibility of spiritual life and growth. As we grow in faith, we seek to be careful stewards of all that God has entrusted us with so that we can more effectively share what we have with others.

To Love God

Jesus taught us that the first commandment was to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We remember that ‘we love because He first loved us’. At the center of our faith is the story of God’s unconditional love for us. In our lives, we seek to know that love, to love God in response, and to allow our lives to be shaped and conditioned by that love.

Our telling of that story of God’s love is through our liturgy and our preaching and teaching each of which is grounded in Scripture. Through disciplines of Worship and Prayer we look to be rooted and established in God’s love. Our Worship is enriched and deepened by our excellent Music and Arts programs.

And our Neighbors

Jesus went on to teach that the second command was to love our Neighbors as ourselves. When asked ‘who is my neighbor’ Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. Our love of God is not just something interior to us, but needs to be demonstrated in the love we have for our neighbors.

As a Church community we often refer to ourselves as a family or part of one body together. We are committed to loving one another as Christ has loved us. We provide many opportunities for Pastoral Care within our church family, but the heart of our church’s life is the desire to take the love of our neighbor that we experience within the family and allow that to shape the way in which our whole lives are open to whoever God sends across our paths.

Our neighbors aren’t just those closest to us geographically. As part of the worldwide Anglican Communion our concern for our neighbor is very local and also global.

Many of our church members are involved in local outreach projects or in supporting a variety of mission partners in prayer or practical and financial support.  Our Day School provides us the opportunity to nurture, love and care for some of the youngest children within our community.