Welcome to our church web site.

2012 is here, and with it will come exciting changes to our community of faith. Our co-pastors, Joy and Jan Linn, will be retiring. Having started Spirit of Joy almost 14 years ago, they have announced their "retirement" in order to create space in their lives for new calls to ministry. Sometime in this New Year they will join all of us in welcoming new pastoral leadership soon. The Ministry Transition Group leading SOJ in this important search for new leadership are hard at work reviewing resumes and interviewing canddidates. At the same time all of us are in prayer for their wise discernment in recommending someone to the congregation.

We experience Spirit of Joy as a very special spiritual home. We believe a prophetic witness requires a serious committment to peace and justice. That is why it is common in sermons and discussions to raise questions about public policies and practices that seem to ignore even basic fairness in our civic life. Our goal is not to get everyone at SOJ to think alike on these important issues, but simply to think about them. It's the way we help one another grow spiritually. 

One of the basic convictions we hold as a church is that the key to a vital ministry is the level of genuine commitment rather than the size of the membership. We focus our energies on responding to personal and collective calls to specific ministries. We describe it as doing what you want to do for God. Undergirding this focus are the various ways we try to help people grow into mature Christians. Whenever we gather, therefore, we try to spend our time focused on that great challenge and avoid as much as we can being sidetracked by things that don't contribute to this end.

Becoming mature Christians involves many things, to be sure, but we believe it begins with a spirit of welcome to everyone. We think social barriers such as race, color, nationality, sexual orientation, or theological points of view are contradictory to following Jesus. Thus, the Communion Table that anchors our weekly worship is open to everyone, no strings attached, as is every aspect of our common life. 

Some people ask if we are a denominational church. The answer is Yes. Spirit of Joy is a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). You can read more about our denominational history and polity by going to http://www.disciples.org.

Thank you, again, for visiting our website. What would be even better is for you to attend one of our Sunday services. We hope you will in the near future.