Our Beliefs:
 We share a confidence
that God is always and everywhere present in our lives and in the
world. We have a variety of notions about how God might be described,
but we each confess that we have experienced grace personally.
We point to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection as the
demonstration of God's love toward us. Each believer's response has
been to accept a relationship to God as a free gift, and this response
has been our salvation.
Communion & Baptism:
The celebration of Commnion, or the Lord's Supper, at Dolores Street
Baptist Church is an integral part of the life of our community
of faith that worships and works together. We normally celebrate
Communion on the first Sunday of each month as part of the worship
service. Since the original celebration in the New Testament was
a part of a community meal, we offer Communion to the entire community,
with each individual in attendance making the decision as to her
or his participation. As a meal of remembrance of the death and
resurrection of Christ, the children of our community partipate
in the memorial supper as a part of our community's commitment and
witness to our faith.
We celebrate Communion with bread, wine, and grape juice. These
elements are representative of those used in every family meal,
including Jesus' last supper. Both wine and grape juice are presented
because many of our participants wish to abstain for personal or
doctrinal reasons. The form of the elements is seen as practical
rather than divisive, for whether filled with wine or grape juice,
the cup's purpose is to represent the blood of Christ, "until He
comes again."
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Inclusive
Language:
Dolores Street Baptist Church welcomes all persons who come to share
it worship and life. We seek to be inclusive because words have
power to affect people's attitudes, influence their actions, and
shape their views of God, God's world, and God's people. We make
an effort therefore to avoid using words that exclude because of
gender, race or handicap, or that use militaristic or unduly hierarchical
imagery.
Because all attempts to revise Scripture and traditional hymnody
involve compromise, we respond in a variety of ways. We frequently
use inclusive versions of Scripture. Hymns not in the hymnal, hymns
with major changes, and recommendations for minor substitutions
are printed in the bulletin.
For some, these efforts may stimulate fresh meaning; for others,
they may put obstacles in the way of worship. Familiarity, specific
literary images, and--not least of all--our concern for the beauty
of language persuade us occasionally to use material that is not
inclusive. We hope that patience and appreciation for inclusiveness
will enable all to participate fully even when our practice may
not always be consistent.
The command to love God and neighbor calls us to look to God beyond
the words and to choose language which witnesses to that love. When
inclusive language is used, we hope it will enrich our worship and
our life together.
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Matters of Faith & Practice:
We believe that grace transforms us when we open ourselves to God's
purposes. Our faith is characterized by an emphasis on receiving
good news, on repentance and confession in the name of Jesus Christ,
and on responding - each and every one of us - to a call to discipleship.
We understand salvation to be a growing, renewing, transforming
experience, not a stable condition to be achieved and then taken
for granted.
We deeply value the power of the Bible to lead us to faith. Scripture
has fed our souls, providing wisdom, correction, and encouragement.
We share the conviction that scripture is most edifying when it
is understood in the context of its original audience and in a variety
of contemporary contexts
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