our Values

first, love exists to build communities of students who know God’s love, live transformed by His love, and share that love with the campuses.

know God’s love

We are a group formed, driven, and guided by the message that God so loves the world that He sent His Son to reconcile us to Himself. We believe that we are not reconciled to God by anything we have done or will do and that we can never earn God’s love, but only receive it by His grace. It is deeply knowing, experiencing, and being changed by this extraordinary, life-changing love that is the reason first, love was formed and continues to exist. 

Gospel centered

We value and cherish the gospel – the message of God’s redeeming love for the world –  not because doing so will make us “good Christians” or merit us favor, but because the gospel has already provided us unmerited, life-changing acceptance and salvation. We see this gospel, literally translated as “good news”, not simply as a set of beliefs, but a message that should change every aspect of our lives and provide hope for an imperfect, unjust, painful world. Therefore, the story of the gospel guides all our decisions, shapes all our other values, and remains the center of all we do. It is our goal to see the gospel make us more like our savior Jesus Christ who commands us to radically love Him and those around us.

Biblically Rooted

We believe that this message of love and reconciliation from God has been divinely recorded in the Bible, which is one way which God continues to speak to humanity today. The Bible is our source of truth and inspiration, which demonstrates and reveals God’s character and outlines His plan of redemption for humanity. We don’t simply read the Bible to gain knowledge or learn rules on how to live. Rather, we read it to know God’s character and His sense of justice, mercy, and love in order to form us into the likeness of Jesus and who we were made to be. 

Relationally Connected

The means and ends of our Christian faith are relationships: with God and with one another. God displayed his love for us on the cross through Jesus Christ in order to reconcile us back into relationship with Him. Through Jesus’s sacrifice, we are brought back into God’s family, where we are able to have fellowship with God and those who love Him. We believe God’s love is best experienced in His family, in relationship with God and with one another. For this reason, all we do happens in the context of relationships – whether that means together leading in teams, studying the Bible with one another, or participating in life’s rhythms in the company of good friends.

live transformed by His love

As a community, we believe that Christ’s unconditional love, expressed and embodied in the Gospel, transforms entire lives, and is incompatible with a compartmentalized faith bounded by Sunday mornings and provided programming. Instead, we believe that, in the Gospel, we find new life, life that is imbued with a new meaning – to share the same love that transformed us with the rest of the world, and to experience how His love transforms the fundamental ways we live our lives, from the way we work, the way we spend our money, to the way we love.

humble hearted

We approach everyone and everything we do with a humble heart that stems from knowing the Gospel – that we were saved by grace, and not by our works. We seek to listen to and understand all people, and we recognize that this can only be done with the humility that comes from the knowledge that we are all sinners. We seek to act not from an identity rooted in one’s self and one’s own desires, but from a new identity rooted in Christ.

Worshipfully Oriented

We believe that the natural response to experiencing God’s love is to want to worship Him in return. This worship includes not only communal musical worship but defines our entire lives as we seek to worship in spirit and in truth, with passion and with joy. Further, we recognize that just as experiencing God’s love cannot be done alone, worship is also incomplete without community. Thus, worshipping Christ with our whole lives is what makes us family. 

Spirit Empowered

We believe that each and every follower of Jesus is bestowed with the same Holy Spirit, none greater than the other. This convicts us to be a consensus-driven organization, where we all seek God’s will together, and to find unity among division. This also empowers us to be student-led, knowing that the youth of our leaders is not a liability, for the strength to do His work does not come from ourselves, but ultimately from Him.

share that love with the campuses

We believe Jesus has not only shared His unconditional love with us for ourselves, but calls us into His mission to share this love with the world. For that reason, we choose to take the gifts, abilities, and positions God has given each of us, and use them as opportunities to love others around us. We as a community make every effort to live servant-minded, kingdom-focused, and conversation-ready to share the love of Jesus with the Claremont College campuses.

Servant Minded

We value taking on a servant mindset because Jesus came to earth not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. For that reason, we take the initiative to care for, support, and serve our classmates and others around us wherever we may be - whether that be at home, in the classroom, in the dining hall, or in the dormitories. We make every effort to create dialogue around the needs of students around us and ask God to show us ways to serve others as He came to serve us.

Kingdom Focused

We value a kingdom-focused approach to life because Jesus invites us to be a part of His kingdom and a part of bringing His kingdom to the whole world. Jesus brought His kingdom from heaven to earth by turning cultural norms upside-down, giving extraordinary value and love to those on the margins of society, and by bringing hope to the hopeless. For that reason, we choose to pursue ethnic and cultural diversity in our organization and actively pursue restorative justice by partnering with other local organizations in our community because in doing so, we stand with the work of God.

Conversation Ready

We value open dialogue and discussion around the Christian faith because we believe Jesus has provided us with good news to share and genuinely loved those with whom he even greatly disagreed with. For that reason, we humbly welcome students from all faith backgrounds to engage with us about the Christian faith. We aim to create safe spaces of dialogue so that students can openly bring their doubts and questions to the table. We also strive for every follower of Jesus to be ready and prepared to share a reason for the Christian hope within them with gentleness and respect.