RISE
CULTURE.
All about Jesus.
Together, for our city.
This is our culture, these are our distinctives, this is what makes us, well, us.
We are
Rise.
At Rise City Church, we are united by a common mission that is bigger than any one of us individually.
Since the creation of the world, God has been calling and sending His people on His mission. Our lives are marked by purpose in partnering together with God in bringing His kingdom to earth.
We believe we have a part to play in bringing that reality to life in our corner of the world. With all that we are, we seek to see this city saturated with the life-transforming power of the Gospel.
We believe living with Gospel-Purpose —joining Jesus on His rescue mission—is the greatest invitation to purpose we can participate in.
This booklet represents who we are. This is our culture, these are our distinctives, this is what makes us, well, us. This is who Rise is.
And so consider this your invitation to join us on Team Jesus.
An invitation to serve our city with radical hospitality. Partnering together to accomplish a Kingdom-sized mission. Offering the world around us the life-transforming grace and hope we have experienced and found in a relationship with Jesus.
Together, let’s flip this city upside down for Jesus.
ALL ABOUT JESUS
We Are Always, Only, Fully, Clearly, All About Jesus.
Jesus is why we are here. Jesus is why we exist. Jesus is why we serve. Jesus is why we gather. Jesus is why we sing. Jesus is why we love. Jesus is why we preach.
Jesus is OUR WHY.
He is unrivaled, unmatched, and unchanging. He is God, He is Good, and He is Glorious.1 He is the only one who could ever save 2, the only one with power to raise the dead to life 3, and the only one that’s worth surrendering your life to.4
So we will be uncompromisingly all about Jesus. Our goal is not to get people to church–our goal is to get people to Jesus. Because if people can meet Jesus, they will see that Jesus is better.
We are a bunch of nobodies, trying to tell everybody about Somebody.
1 Colossians 2:9
2 John 14:6
3 Ephesians 1:19–20
4 John 8:12
GOSPEL PEOPLE
We Are Gospel People.
The Gospel is the story of God redeeming and restoring all things through Jesus.5
The Gospel is not elementary, the Gospel is foundational. Everything we do is built upon the story of what Jesus has already done.
The Gospel is a story. This is why the Gospel starts with creation: we were created to spend eternity in good relationship with God. That story tells us there was The Fall, when humans rejected relationship and chose self instead. Yet God did not leave us in that state of death; The Father sent Jesus to live the life we could not live in order to pay the cost of sin we could not pay. He redeemed us, set us free from the penalty of sin and death. And one day, He will restore all things for all of eternity for all who are found in Him!
In the Gospel, our debt is paid by Jesus. In the Gospel, our relationship is restored through Jesus. In the Gospel, our eternity is secured by Jesus.
Jesus did what we could never do to allow us to experience what we could never have apart from Him.6
Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people live.
And so all we say, do, make, teach, build, and share is rooted in the good news of the Gospel. We do not move beyond the Gospel, we move deeper into the Gospel.
5 Colossians 1:19–20
6 Romans 8:3
HOPE DEALERS
We Are Hope Dealers.
We live in a world marked by pain and darkness. All of our lives, we’ve experienced the curse of the fall—the shadow that sin cast upon this wounded world.
But Sundays—the day the people of God join together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus—Sundays are marked by hope.7
When outsiders walk through the doors of Rise into our house, they should experience a taste of a Kingdom beyond this world. Sundays will be soaked in hope, saturated with grace.8
Sundays are the day that we make war against the curse upon this world. Sundays are a day we sing at the top of our lungs that Jesus is alive—that death does not get the final say. Sundays are the day that prepares us to go BE the Church on Monday through Saturday.
So don’t leave your junk at the door, bring it to the altar. Bring your pain and shame and brokenness to the One who makes all things new. Then walk out in new life and resurrection power.
7 Romans 12:12
8 Romans 15:13
SPIRIT POWER
We Have Spirit Power.
Not only did Jesus send His Church with a promise to be with them,9 with a mission that couldn’t be stopped even by the gates of Hell, but He sent us in Power to be His witnesses. He did this by sending the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is a he, not an it. He is a person, not a force. And He dwells within every believer as our access to resurrection power10 and promise for eternal preservation.11
In Jesus, you are gifted with power that goes beyond mere human abilities, skills, or experience. YOU have been gifted by The Spirit to bring the Kingdom to earth. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you!12
A movement in this city will not be by a new strategy or system, but by a demonstration of the Spirit’s power in our lives.
So while the Holy Spirit can be a great mystery, we lean in and embrace His movement in our lives as He guides, reveals, empowers, and enables us to do far more than is possible in our own strength.
9 Matthew 28:18
10 Ephesians 1:19
11 Ephesians 1:13
12 Romans 8:11
PEOPLE OF THE WORD
We Are a People of the Word.
Every human being has, at one point, gazed into the stars and wondered about the meaning of it all.
The Bible is God’s compelling, compassionate answer. The human soul gasps for truth. God exhaled Scripture to fill our longing for answers.
What a precious jewel Scripture is! It makes visible the invisible God. It pulls back the veil between Heaven and Earth. It divides soul and spirit. We aren’t left to speculation because Scripture is revelation. We aren’t abandoned to conjecture because we’ve received the Holy Scriptures.
Therefore we as a church are shaped, formed, led, and surrendered to the Word. The Word is how we know the Gospel. The Word is what guides the Church and transforms its people. The Word is what reveals to us the goodness and glory of Jesus.
So every time we gather, we open the Word. Each time we make a decision, it’s in submission to the Word. All that we are is founded upon the flawless, beautiful, and life-giving Word of Jesus.
ALL OF LIFE
We Worship With All of Life.
For far too long we have allowed there to be a division between the sacred and the secular that God never intended. All of life is sacred.
All of life is worship unto our Creator.
From making coffee, soothing babies, holding doors, and running slides on a Sunday, to crafting lattes, framing houses, teaching third graders, and folding laundry—all of life and work is an act of worship when done to honor our Creator.
Sunday is a launch party into the rest of the week—to offer our bodies as living sacrifices.13 At our gatherings, worship is not a time to passively observe, worship is going to war against the evil of this world and the idolatry in our hearts. Therefore we sing at the top of our lungs, fight the timidity of our souls, lift our hands in praise, and fall to our knees in surrender—because Jesus is worthy of it all.
But our worship continues into our work, our play, our raising of families. How we use our hands, minds, and bodies on Monday declares that Jesus is King just as loudly as our singing does on Sunday.
Worship is doing all that we do for the Glory of God.14
13 Romans 12:1
14 Colossians 3:23
LOVE OUR CITY
We Love Our City.
We believe God has divinely placed us in this particular place for this unique moment in time. We do not run away to comfort; we press forward with compassion.
Since before the formation of cities and culture, God has been calling His people to bring about His good for the cities in which He has placed them.15 He rescues us to be rescuers. As the Father sent Jesus, so now Jesus sends us.16
As the Church, we are called to be salt and light to the city in which we find ourselves.17 We don’t love our city because of what it has to offer us—we love our city because God has divinely placed us here to be an offering to them.
From Gresham to Corbett, Troutdale to Sandy, Portland to Damascus—this is our city. And we will seek with all we have to bring about good and grace, that the city would flourish—on earth as in heaven.
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”Jeremiah 29:7
15 Jeremiah 29:5-7
16 John 20:21
17 Matthew 5:13-16
RADICALLY HOSPITABLE
We Are Radically Hospitable.
We, the Church, love, serve, and welcome outsiders into our family. We show radical hospitality to those who are not yet a part of our family.18 “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others. Not dominating, but helping and serving.”19
Our mission is outside of our walls, yet we make our house as warm and welcoming as possible.
When we prepare our space ahead of time, we are saying, “You are welcome here.” When we intentionally look for those whose name we don’t know, we are helping the unseen outsider become a known and welcomed insider.
When we hold doors, make coffee, play music, strike up a conversation, give up our seat, offer up a prayer—we are seeking to make people feel at home in our home.
That level of warm, intentional, radical hospitality is contagious—it creates a culture of Jesus-like hospitality in His house.
Jesus loved those who were unseen, unknown, and unwelcome. As Jesus’ people, we strive with all that we are to do the same. Jesus made room for us in His family, so we make room for others in ours.
18 Hebrews 13:2
19 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian who was killed for his resistance against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
WIN THE FUTURE
We Win the Future.
The next generation is always the most important generation. They are the future of our church, our city, and our world. Jesus demanded His disciples protect and propel forward the next generation.
Therefore we shamelessly invest in the next generation as if they are our own. We disciple. We raise up. We protect. We call forth. We advocate. We teach. We have all been entrusted with this next generation of kids, youth, and young adults.
So we don’t just teach and train—we empower and entrust. This next generation is precious to us because they are precious to Jesus.
This generation will not grow up with stories of being wounded, left behind, or forgotten by the Church. This generation will grow up experiencing a church that believes in them, a church that belongs to them, a church that obeys the command of Jesus.
The future of our city depends on it. Win the kids, win the future.
A UNIFIED COLLECTIVE
We Are a Unified Collective.
Jesus bought and built His Church with His blood.20 We are a united family because we are all one in Jesus. That oneness is not created by the Church—rather, it’s to be protected by the Church.
We do not unify around sameness, ideology, politics, ideas, personalities, methods, or backgrounds. We are unified by our common identity in Jesus and our common mission in the Kingdom. There is a purpose to our unity.
We unite around mission, not methods. We fight to protect the unity Jesus bought with His blood.21 We guard against division and divisive behavior, because our unity amidst diversity is one of our greatest tools for witness in a fractured world.22
Division is a device of the enemy. Unity is the language of the Trinity.
Therefore, we are a unified collective. Men and women with different backgrounds, passions, experiences, personalities, gifts, and callings. Unified in one church because we are better together. It is our differences that God uses to make us into a whole unit for His glory.
20 Acts 20:28
21 Ephesians 4:3
22 John 13:35
A GENEROUS PEOPLE
We Are a Generous People.
As the Church, we are recipients of the most radical act of generosity ever displayed in human history. God’s gift of grace has come freely to us by being of great cost to Him.
Jesus has generously shared with us His righteousness, His standing before the Father, His place in the eternal family— and He did it all with joy set before Him.
And so as Jesus’ people, we give of all that we have with joy. We invest our time, talents, and treasure into a Kingdom that will matter for all of eternity.
It’s not about obligation, compulsion, or formulas23—it’s about worship. We give back to the One who gives all as an act of worship and surrender to His extravagant grace.
Generosity is a posture of the heart that declares we love God more than the things of this world and we love people more than possessions.
When someone enters into the family of Rise, they will experience radical generosity as an extension of Jesus’ radical grace.
23 2 Corinthians 9:7
DESIGNED TO BE DESIGNERS
We Are Designed to be Designers.
J.R.R. Tolkien coined the idea that we are sub-designers. Since God is the ultimate designer, and we are made in His image, we are designed to be designers. When we design, we are reflecting His nature within us.
And because God is a God of beauty and design, beauty matters in all we do. Every sign, every typeface, every layout, every space, every color palette, every series— everything we do should be designed with purpose, on purpose.
We design so that all we do would be free from distraction and all attention would be magnified upon the goodness of Jesus.
Our design is one of the ways we speak of God’s beauty and order to the world around us. Design ushers His unchanging message to a rapidly changing world.
Before most people meet us, they see us. They drive past our building or scroll through our social. We want what they see to be inviting, captivating, inspiring, and irresistibly engaging. We want it to be a glimpse into God’s nature passed down to God’s people.
A TEAM OF TEAMS
We Are a Team of Teams.
We are better together. We do not function in isolation or operate as individuals. Paul called us the body of Christ, a temple of living stones, the family of God.
Jesus called forth, raised up, and sent out a team to flip the world upside down— therefore we do the same.
Teams cultivate collaboration. Teams promote partnership. Teams develop dependability. Teams multiply the mission.
From kids to hospitality, leadership to outreach, we function in plurality. There is no head of our church but Jesus himself. We are not built by, lead by, discipled by, or driven by any one individual—we are a team of teams.
Therefore we intentionally build teams where every part of the body is honored. No one of us is more important or more significant than anyone else24—but we all strive to elevate those around us.
We brag about people behind their backs. We call people up—to live out their calling and potential. We assume the best and give the benefit of the doubt. We speak life into each other and are dead set against cynicism. We show gratitude for sacrifice and honor how others use their gifts.
This means no matter your gifting, calling, or experience, you have a place and a role and a purpose. We are spiritual contributors, not spiritual consumers. None of this is all about any one of us, yet every one of us is essential.
24 1 Corinthians 12:22
WE GET TO
We Don’t Have to, We Get to.
When it comes to serving God and people: we don’t have to, we get to. We get to love on the lost. We get to serve the saints.26 We get to have a place and purpose in His kingdom.
Jesus found us, saved us, called us, and sent us. So we serve for His glory, by His Spirit, and with the joy that He gives.
We serve with all that we are. No role is too small, no act unseen. Serving is not a pain but a privilege.
If Jesus can wash feet, we can wash floors. If Jesus can prepare wine, we can prepare coffee. If Jesus can open doors, we can hold them open.
In the kingdom of Jesus, service is the pathway to greatness.27
So we bring our best, serve with joy, and take ownership over the mission.
26 Romans 1:7
27 Matthew 20:26
KINGDOM OVER CASTLE
Kingdom Over Castle.
We love Rise. We love our space. We love our people. We love our mission. But we are A church, we are not THE Church. We are a small part of what Jesus is doing through His Church in His Kingdom.
We join Jesus in honoring and building and serving His bride. We honor the churches around us in how we speak of them. We build them up and invest in their mission and purpose. We serve them whenever they need help.
We choose Kingdom over castle.
Every Jesus church doesn’t look the same or feel the same. It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. But if they preach the Gospel, then they are our partners in the mission of Jesus.
So we pray for, honor, speak well of, invest in, and cheer on the other churches in our city as Gospel-partners whom Jesus loves and died for.
Together, let’s
flip this city
upside down
for Jesus.
Find your people. Bring your gifts. Join the mission.
