Home

About Fairview Community Church

 

Fairview Community Church

A vibrant, open and loving congregation, serving as a beacon of joy and peace in Orange County; encouraging each other in our faith as we grow in our lives through service to Jesus our Lord and Teacher.

We are a progressive congregation of the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. We are an Open, Welcoming and Affirming Church for all people especially the LGBT community.  Welcome to our safe space!  May this be a sanctuary for ALL!

Fairview Community Church is an Open, Welcoming and Affirming church,
embracing diversity in our congregation and community,
and affirming the dignity and worth of every human being created in the image of God.  
We continue to honor our founding principle that discrimination
is incompatible with Christ's Gospel of unconditional love.  
We believe God loves us all and calls us into community with our brothers and sisters of every race, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, economic or marital status, and faith background.  We affirm and celebrate all loving and committed relationships.  
We acknowledge the history of the institutional church in condemning and excluding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, and in condoning such discrimination by its silence.  
We commit ourselves to work diligently to end such oppression and discrimination.
 We welcome our gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender sisters and brothers to join with us in hearing Jesus' call to share God's love in the full life, ministry and witness of our struggle for justice and peace. 
We the members of Fairview Community Church pray our fellow congregations sharing denominational identity with the American Baptist Churches and United Church of Christ will work with us to invite all God's children into a community of love.
 Following the example of Jesus, we hereby declare ourselves to be an
Open, Welcoming and Affirming Church.

Rev. Sarah Halverson was called to Fairview Community Church on May 7, 2006. She won us over with her candidating sermon, “A Real Page Turner: Living the Code.”    Rev. Sarah began her ministry with us on August 1, 2006. You can listen to her Sunday morning services on our podcast page or through itunes at  http://fairviewcc.mypodcast.com/  

Reaching our vision, Fairview Community Church strives to be:

  • a church of love: love of God, love of Jesus, and love for each other.
  • a church of openness and tolerance, where all are welcome and each is free to pursue their spiritual journey and love for God and Jesus, as we each understand them.
  • a thinking church: where we use both our hearts and minds in our pursuit of Christian living.
  • a church of gentleness and joy, where each one and all are nurtured and celebrated.

The Fairview Community Church Bedrock Beliefs are:

  1. Jesus
    • Jesus as example to all
    • Jesus as Lord and Savior
    • Each member is responsible for their belief about and their personal relationship with Jesus
  2. God
    • God is unconditional love
    • God is the highest and best in all of us
    • We are all one in the spirit
    • Each of us has our own personal understanding of and relationship with God
    • Christianity is our chosen path to God but other paths to God are available to others through other religions and personal spirituality
    • The path to God is primarily through our actions-how we live our lives
  3. Power of Prayer
    • Conversation with God, as strength
  4. Grace
    • Love for one another
    • Learning to love unconditionally
    • Golden Rule, gentle and compassionate
    • Giving and forgiving
    • Grateful, celebrating life, joyful
  5. Bible
    • Biblical teachings are at the center of our faith
    • Each member is responsible for his/her personal interpretation of the Bible and for supplementing learning from the Bible with learning from alternative sources as he/she sees fit

Fairview Community Church Core Values

  1. Openness
    • Welcoming of all who seek to grow spiritually with our congregation
  2. Community
    • Praying together
    • Fellowship, family, friendship, participation and involvement
    • Joy, celebration, food & wine, music, laughter, sense of humor, spontaneity
    • Nurturing, sharing and caring
    • Focused and supported youth ministry
  3. Acceptance of All
    • People before policy
    • Embrace differences and diversity, gender equity, non-judgmental
    • Acceptance of wide range of beliefs, "agree to disagree"
    • Welcoming
    • Affirming
  4. Thinking & Learning
    • Sermons the challenge
    • Open discussions (talkback, etc.)
    • Independent and free thinking
    • Inquisitive, curious, creative
    • Readings and study groups
    • Use of the Bible and other sources to expand our spiritual development and understanding
  5. Missions
    • Reaching out to help and give to others

 

Our ABC regional affiliation lies with the Evergreen Association, a new region of the American Baptist Church whose forward thinking group of churches truly value diversity by operating by consensus and intentionally seeking to hear each voice within the region. Locally, we are a church of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the UCC. We are a congregation that believes that God is Still Speaking in our lives and that means that we cannot ignore God’s call as old and stale, but fresh, alive, and pertinent to our culture and present day.