Some reflections of the culture of Cherry Hinton Baptist Church written by Nic Boyns.
Our aspirations for ourselves are high, for we wish to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, which means that we have a sense that we fall short in many way, and yet we are loved by God. This sense of being loved by God as we are, is what we seek to carry forward into our relationship with others.
We take seriously the command not to take the Lord’s name in vain. If I have a sense that the Lord is calling me to do something I talk to others in such a way that they can put over a different sense of what the Lord is doing. This is also true in the way in which we talk about the past. We tend to use simple, non theological language to describe what we are doing.
We believe in the “glorious freedom of the children of God”. What it means to be a Church member is left to the conscience of the church member. We do not tell each other what we ought to be doing. There is not a culture of “everyone must do this”.
Spontaneity is valued, but so is careful preparation and faithful worship. We take with a pinch of salt attempts to replicate circumstances in which we met with God in the past.
Walking humbly with God is highly valued - a genuine sense that we as Christians may be not be understanding the bible and not being faithful. We are always as much talking to ourselves as talking others when sharing the good news. We evaluate what we do because we know that however well intentioned we are we can miss the mark.
The bible is deep and, at times, mysterious. Having a biblical position generally holds in tension two (or more) principles which can go in opposite directions. We rarely say “the bible is clear on this”.
We value consistency and reliability