About

SANCTUARY

Our Vision

Sanctuary is a community of people striving to love God and love others in all that we do.

Our Values

How we live into our vision

Creating Sacred Space

We create sacred spaces that help people experience God’s peace, purpose, and grace.

Connecting to God and One Another

We celebrate the good news of Jesus that God’s love is for all, and seek to build lasting relationships that support and strengthen one another.

Responding Together

We live out our faith by responding to what God is already up to in the world: restoring relationships, reconciling creation, and reminding everyone of their value and worth.

Our Story

coffee & collaboration

Two pastors walk into a Starbucks

In 2009, a Lutheran pastor and a Methodist pastor connected over a cup of a coffee and a dream began to take shape. What would it look like to truly embrace Jesus' prayer in John 17:21 "that they may all be one"? The resulting collaboration brought together contributions and gifts from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the United Methodist Chruch (UMC) to start something unique and new. The ELCA had a pastor ready to start a new church, the UMC had a location to add to the effort, and Sanctuary was born.

Why not?

The rest of our story from then until now has been filled with "Why not?"s. What if we started worship on a deck with a handful of people... why not? What if we took all the pews and carpeting out of this traditional sanctuary and created a new kind of sacred space... why not? What if we started a summer camp for kids... why not? What if we partnered with friends in Guatemala to build stoves... why not? Through prayerful meetings and creative bursts, Sanctuary has grown from that dream of a collaborative congregation in Marshfield to a vibrant community of all ages rooted in our original desire to come together in the face of so much splitting apart.

How We Believe

The Fence

First let's get the what out of the way

Sanctuary is a congregation affiliated with both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the United Methodist Church (UMC), two historic Protestant denominations in America. Both denominations affirm the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith as it's expressed in the Scriptures and confessed in the church’s historic creeds (the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed). Learn more about what the UMC and ELCA believe.

But equally important is how we believe

If you just read that paragraph above and are not entirely sure what that means, you're not alone. Often statements of belief get boiled down to shorthand and not so subtle cues to let people know whether this is that tribe or my tribe. In or out. Good or bad.

Instead, we think of that historic, orthodox, definition of faith as more like a fence. A picket fence, not a privacy fence. The kind of fence that designates a safe area to explore, grow up, play and discover, rather than the kind of fence designed to keep people out. Within those defined beliefs, that fence, is also a lot of space to move, question, learn and mature. How we believe is less about ticking off all the boxes, and more about allowing ourselves to be surrounded by God's promises as we explore our faith together.

On to The Fence

The Fence is our way of describing more clearly some of those things that surround us and create space for us to grow in faith together.

Err on the side of love

At the heart of God’s story is love. It was love that created a beautiful world that is good, the love of Jesus that redeemed the goodness of creation despite our sometimes violent rejection, and love that continues to inform and carry us as we try to understand our purpose in the world. Because of the clarity of that narrative, we err on the side of love. When presented with a choice between listening and a lecture, we choose to listen. When given an opportunity to give or take, we give. And when wrestling with the most contentious issue or deeply held conviction, we remember that we have been made to love others, value our own worth, and most of all love God.

We know true love through Jesus

Love is an ambiguous concept. It can be mushy, a cliché, or shallow. As Christians, however, we look to the perfect example of true love: love seen and experienced by our fore-runners in the faith through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is not love that sends a card from a distance; this is love that dwells among us. The love seen in Jesus is not afraid live in the midst of the messiness of the world, to encounter brokenness, or to allow us to express our deepest desires for violence and vengeance. Even though there is a part of us willing to drive Jesus to his death, it is a love that cannot be crushed, that will not be killed. It is a love that grows up out of those dark depths to blossom ever more fully.

We know Jesus through scripture

We know of Jesus’ love, of God’s relationship to the world, through scripture. We hold the Bible to be divinely inspired, and it’s words are central to Christian faith. It is the stories, poems, letters, and history of God’s people, and it is in those books and writings that God’s intentions and promises are revealed. It is an ongoing dialogue between God and God’s people, and ultimately invites us to see where we too have been made to have a relationship with God both individually and as a community.

God’s Spirit is still active in the world

God didn’t create the world and walk away. From the very beginning, as Jesus’ disciples began to become the church, they experienced God’s continued connection in their lives in both tangible and mysterious ways. They knew that Jesus didn’t come to set things right, dust off his hands, and walk away. They experienced Jesus’ continued presence even after what seemed like the end. What began with Jesus’ life after death has continued through the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, that still moves through our minds and lives, drawing us ever closer to the world as God intends it.

God’s grace is overwhelming and complete

One of the hardest struggles we face in life is giving credit where credit is due. This can mean claiming too much personal credit for collaborative efforts, or undervaluing our own worth by discounting the real contributions we make. What we’ve seen, however, through Jesus is God’s willingness to be with us, to suffer the whims of our condemnation and our best efforts to separate ourselves from that relationship and yet still remain. That is God’s grace. It is not understandable. It has no corollary. Despite our efforts to make comparisons to the love of a parent or our commitments to family, those things don’t even come close. Parents and families can sometimes disappoint, but God’s grace is ever present and never diminished. For this God deserves full credit for sustaining that relationship, and we are moved to give thanks in whatever ways we can.

Openness and diversity draw us close to God

We live in a time where it’s popular, and far too easy, to self-associate with like minded people. It’s ever-tempting to find a comfortable group, blog, news channel, etc. and settle into a glorious feedback loop of exactly what we want to hear. But God is bigger than our opinions. God is far more profound than “right” and “wrong”. To appreciate that means actively working to include people in the conversation who might not naturally be included. It also means creating a culture where openness is valued, not repressed; where questions can be engaged, not dismissed. We are a denominationally diverse church, collaborating across our historic divisions with the realization that God is doing something larger in our midst.

We exist for the work of God in the world

What enables us to focus in life, to embrace our skills and careers and live out our passions with conviction of purpose, is the belief that we have all been created and gifted by God. Those gifts don’t stand in isolation, but are an integral part of the work God is already doing in our community and in the world. We are invited to understand our gifts, look for where God is active, and discern how we can combine our passions and skills with the needs of the world. Ultimately this allows us to experience the joy of what God is pulling together in our midst.

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We believe everyone is made in God’s image just as they are, unique and loved unconditionally. No asterisks. No qualifiers. No caveats. All are welcome and included in the life of this community fully and completely. A special note to our LGBTQ+ friends, you are safe and have a place here.