Loving God

Serving Others

Building Christian Community

University United Methodist Church is about introducing and reintroducing people to a God who is in love with them. We strive to be a community of kinship: that loves as we have been loved; affirms the full participation of all ages, nations, races, classes, cultures, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities; and that is a light for justice and peace in our town and beyond.

Mission and Core Values

Mission:

Our mission as a church family is to live into radical kinship through loving God, serving others, and building Christian community.

Vision:

To become one church family of kindred communities. United in our vision of living into the radical kinship of God, we are deeply committed to relational discipleship, formative worship, serving our neighbors, and the ministry of planting churches. Through multiple geographies, diverse strategies, and distinctive expressions of these shared commitments, our kindred communities work in concert to share hope and kinship with our neighborhoods and world.

Foundational Practices:

Across all of our kindred communities, our church family is unwaveringly committed to:

  • Relational Discipleship – Our God is a Trinity of Persons bound as One in kindred love. The gospel is that God created us and saves us for the purpose of fully participating in that divine kinship, now and forever. Thus, our primary methods (and our ultimate goal) for disciple-formation are essentially relational.
  • Formative Worship – We believe worship is the work of the people, which also work on the people so we are committed to forms of worship that are participatory and that guide worshippers into full, conscious, active participation that engages the head and heart in such a way that people are moved to open their hands to serve. We trust that formation in worship offers indispensable guidance for receiving, embodying, and sharing divine kinship.
  • Serving our Neighbors – Confident of Gods good future in which injustice and suffering will be no more, we are committed to working with our neighbors toward that future here and now. We strive to bless our neighbors, near and far, by opposing injustice and alleviating suffering. In so doing, we intend to provide a faithful witness to the in-breaking Kingdom where all are siblings in the family of God.

Values:

To prevent our mission from becoming a static statement, we aspire to these enduring values that guide our life together:

WORD OF GOD

As it is made known in the bible and the still-speaking Spirit that stirs us up. 

It anchors us in something bigger than ourselves and draws us into the fullness of our being.

BOLDNESS

That means being open to risk, to standing in vulnerable places, to new ideas, to trying new things, to getting it wrong, to starting over.

SIMPLICITY

The implications of following Christ are complex but the church doesn’t have to be complicated.

Our structures, communication, and practices will always strive toward simplicity that follows the organic movements of the community.

GENEROSITY

God generously shares God’s grace with us and so we enjoy generously sharing our gifts with others.

EQUALITY

For the marginalized, the overlooked, the oppressed.

So we keep our eyes and ears open for opportunities to appreciate, advocate,

and celebrate alongside the marginalized and overlooked in our community and beyond.

KINSHIP: FAMILIES & FRAMILIES

Whether you were born, adopted, surrogated, married, divorced, separated, or brunch-ed into it. 

Whether you share DNA or not. If you dont have kids, and if you do.

We value all enduring relationships marked by love, challenge, and accountability.

We are the church. We are siblings in Christ. We are true family.

OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

From those who live next-door to those further from us…

we love our neighborhoods and were committed to being a vital part of them.

WE ARE A SAFE SANCTUARY

God calls us to make our churches safe places, protecting children and other vulnerable persons from sexual and ritual abuse. God calls us to create communities of faith where children and adults grow safe and strong. In solidarity with other United Methodist congregations, University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill has adopted relevant components of this policy for the prevention of abuse of vulnerable people in our church.

Click here to read our full Safe Sanctuary policy.