The three most frequent theological questions posed to the Pastors, Staff and Elders of illuminate church tend to revolve around the three following topics. Therefore, we are stating a shared theology on all three—not because there is a Biblical emphasis on these issues, but simply out of Pastoral response to the questions being asked both within our church and broader culture.

Holy Spirit 

The role and expression of Holy Spirit is an area many are intrigued by before attending or participating in the life of a church. At illuminate, the activity and power of the Holy Spirit is essential to the abundant life Jesus promises.  The richness of life lived in relationship to Holy Spirit, the fruit of Holy Spirit, the direction Holy Spirit brings are an outflow of life experienced by those baptized by Jesus into Holy Spirit. (Luke 3:16). We celebrate the fulness of Holy Spirit present with us and in those who’ve participated in baptism in Holy Spirit.   

• We celebrate the invaluable work of Holy Spirit within the church noting that nothing of worth occurs at illuminate church without the unmistakable presence of Holy Spirit. (Zechariah 4:6) 
• We celebrate that it is Holy Spirit who draws people into faith and subsequently teaches all that is necessary for living as Christ. 
• We celebrate that Holy Spirit, if welcomed and accessed, has the ability to give comfort, counsel and correction without condemnation. 
• We celebrate that the gifts of Holy Spirit (Romans 12:6-8, 1Corinthians 12:8-10, 28) are distributed to all as the Lord directs for “the work of one and the same Spirit.”  (1Corinthians 12:11) In other words, the gifts are from the Spirit and for the Spirit.  Not for man. Holy Spirit brings the experience of the life of Jesus into our lives. The gifts of Holy Spirit are divided into three categories (1Corinthians 12:7-11):  
• Vocal Gifts—tongues, prophecy and the interpretation of tongues
  
• Knowledge Gifts—word of knowledge, word of wisdom and the discerning of spirits 
• Power Gifts—healing, faith and miracles 

All the gifts of Holy Spirit are powerfully and wonderfully displayed at illuminate church so that Christ Jesus may be revealed among us.   

In regards to the expression of the Holy Spirit, we recognize that abuses have made some recoil or reject the blessing of Holy Spirit living.  To help understand how we seek to engage with Holy Spirit at illuminate, we walk in regards to order as opposed to chaos.   1Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace–as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. 

• Chaos is the absence of God for where God is, there is order.  We desire with all fulness to have the Lord present and manifesting His love, grace, mercy, power, and strength to all in His midst.  For that reason, we must be good stewards of the presence of Holy Spirit, asking ourselves what invites His presence and what inhibits His presence.   

Inhibitors of Holy Spirit – It is never God’s will that we seek spiritual experience for the sake of experience. God’s will is that we seek Jesus Himself by faith and in accordance with the Word of God. He is our only source of genuine spiritual experience, satisfaction, and fulfillment (Psalm 16:11, Philippians 3:10-14). 

• Like money, power, sex and food, every gift can be used by humans in a way not intended.  Often these out-of-design actions become objects of desire for others and are lauded as correct when in fact they are not.  Such has been the case in the history of the church regarding the Gifts of the Spirit.  If a gift is used as a demarcation of maturity or as a status symbol, then the gift has been abused.  If the Gifts of the Spirit have been reduced to religious activity, they have become forms of Godliness void of its power (II Timothy 3:5).  For example, if someone is speaking in tongues or raising their hands in worship merely because they think that’s what they are supposed to do, or are told they have to do, they have not enjoyed the fulness of the true gift and are merely acting religiously.  This is also an abuse of the gift.  The excess comes when someone has received the gift in purity but have turned it now into an idol on display.  Such a person may think, “I want people to see me using my gift (consciously or subconsciously) and I don’t “feel” like God was present if I didn’t feel/see a move of the Spirit in a powerful way.”  This kind of desire leads to hyper-emotional expressions of the Spirit that are out of order, draw attention to self, thus grieving and inhibiting the Spirit of God. 

Inviters of Holy Spirit – While the above section details what inhibits a move of Holy Spirit in the church, our focus at illuminate is on what invites Holy Spirit to reign over our flesh and spill forth the abundant life Jesus promised His followers.  The fullness of life comes from engaging with all three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit.  How does one participate with the Holy Spirit?  The following is a list of a few helps so that the full power and gifts of Holy Spirit will operate in your life: 

• Spend time in prayer. A big part of understanding how the Holy Spirit guides you begins with prayer. Not only can we pray, and ask God for wisdom, but praying is one of the ways we communicate with Jesus. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26 NIV). 
• Study the Bible. Take a deep dive into God’s Word to determine how He wants you to live, what He wants you to do and how He wants you to behave. Spending time in the Bible is similar to grabbing coffee with a friend. This is how you grow in your relationship with Jesus, and, as you grow, you will yearn to adjust your actions to please the Lord. “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:13) 
• Worship the Lord. Carve out time in your schedule to worship. There’s no better way to welcome the Holy Spirit than through worship. The Holy Spirit shows us the way into God’s presence and enables us to fellowship with Him. He inspires our spirit and brings us into communion with the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14-16). The Holy Spirit creates the longing in us to worship God. It is He who inspires our hearts to worship and praise God. 

Sexuality/Homosexuality 

One of the great difficulties in defining a Biblical understanding of sexuality in our modern context is the unseen, inner pain a person often carries behind the question. In recent history, the church has mishandled the topic of sexuality from a variety of angles. The church’s witness has centered on what forms of sexual expression Scripture is against instead of the dignifying, freeing sexual expression Scripture advocates for. Jesus majored in the latter; the church has emphasized the former. More personally, while the church has historically held to an understanding of sexuality distinct from the surrounding culture, the application of that belief in recent history has become alienating to those whose sexual expression does not line up with the church’s. The tragedy of that shift has been that many have been made to feel alienated by the Christian church because of sexual practice and/or sexual orientation. 

Because of the complexity presented by recent history, we will succinctly define our belief as well as how we express our belief, both of which carry equal importance. 

Belief – We believe in the historically Christian view of marriage and sexual expression; namely, that marriage is a lifelong, one-flesh covenant union between two sexually different persons (originally male and female) from different families, and that all sexual relationships and expressions outside of marriage are sin. 

How We Express Our Belief  – The expression of this belief is often the more important question to people in search of a spiritual home: Will I (or one of my loved ones) be welcomed at illuminate Church? And is there a barrier where that welcome is no longer extended? 

Regardless of sexual practice and/or orientation, illuminate Church welcomes all to worship with us. Jesus is the head of the Church, and Jesus was uncompromising in teaching and calling people to align with his beliefs, a pathway to “life to the full.” (John 10:10) Another group of rabbis, called the Pharisees, were equally convicted of the truth of their beliefs, and held many beliefs in common with Jesus. So why was it that those who felt alienated by the Pharisees also felt so welcome by Jesus though both hold the same standard? Because of how each expressed common beliefs: the Pharisees did so in pride, as their primary concern was being right, while Jesus did so in love, as His primary concern was compassion for the person and story behind the belief and life change rooted in love, not fear or judgment. 

The church is called the Body of Christ. We are a communal expression of Jesus’ heart, so both our beliefs and our expression of those beliefs should mirror Jesus. When it comes to sexuality, we carry three important convictions that inform our expression: 

1. Our first responsibility is to be a living display of covenant love and sexuality. The church was not founded to critique the surrounding culture but to form a distinct counterculture where “life to the full” is on display as an invitation to all. However, in many ways (covenant love and sexuality being one obvious example) the church has mirrored the culture more than forming a counterculture. Therefore, our work is not to change anyone else’s mind or critique the world outside of our family, but to live with the sort of fidelity, service, and love within our own singleness and marriage covenants that we become a living witness to the fullest sort of life. 

1. We lead with a heart of love and compassion for people. The doors and the arms of our church family are open to anyone, regardless of belief. No one will ever be excluded from worshiping with us on Sundays for any misalignment of belief. 
2. We must differentiate between agreement and acceptance. One of the truly fascinating aspects of the life of Jesus is that the very people whose lives least aligned with his ethical teachings were most drawn to him. His dinner company and close friends are made up of people out-of-alignment with his teaching (e.g. Jesus teaches that to even look at a woman lustfully is to commit adultery, then is consistently surrounded by prostitutes who profited on lust; Jesus teaches an ethic of radical generosity, then welcomes a tax collector, whose life was defined by greed, into his inner circle of 12 disciples; etc.). In modern cultural rhetoric, agreement and acceptance are often used synonymously: “If you don’t agree with my ethical choices (belief), you don’t accept me (expression).” However, in Jesus, we observe the opposite phenomenon: Those who felt most accepted in his presence were those most obviously living in disagreement with his teaching. Therefore, as a church, we are committed to becoming a community linked to Jesus in both agreement and acceptance. We are unapologetically aligned with every word of his teaching. Equally, we are uncompromisingly insistent on becoming the sort of community where those out-of-alignment with his beliefs (including sexuality) feel welcome and accepted in our fellowship.  To be clear, the purpose of Jesus’ acceptance was and is to engender agreement in belief of all He accepted.  To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus accepted her, expressed love to her, then asked for her agreement stating, “Go, and sin no more.” 
3. The question still awaits, “At what point am I limited by my beliefs if they are not aligned with Biblical teachings?”  Whether this is sexuality or any other Biblically defined sin, an individual is welcomed to participate fully in the life of illuminate church until they attempt to lure another into sin or they seek leadership of any kind because leadership is influence.  All who desire to influence at illuminate church are bound by two values:  FREEDOM (agreement to the Biblical Worldview) and ALIGNMENT (agreement with the vision and mission of the local church).  If someone is seeking to influence/lure another while in a lifestyle that is Biblically defined as sin, this is where a limit arises.  In most cases, the limit is a pause to gracefully and truthfully (John 1:14) address either freedom or alignment.

Women in Leadership 

The question of how men and women relate and engage in church leadership offices (particularly Pastor and Elder) has been a subject of significant debate at various points in church history. There are many considerations within the broader subject of men and women in leadership that are dealt with in the Bible. Here we have included a summary of things we see taught across the arc of Scripture that directly bear on our church’s position and practice. 

• We believe that women and men are created equal in the image of God.  
• We believe that full equality between women and men does not mean women and men are completely the same. There is goodness and beauty uniquely represented in each gender that profoundly reflects and glorifies God.  
• We believe God gives leadership in the church on the basis of grace, calling, spiritual gifts, obedience, and character. 
• We believe both women and men can and should lead, preach, pastor, and minister within the church. We believe women and men doing this together will result in a more robust ministry of love and grace than one gender can sustain alone. 
• We believe women and men can and should serve in pastoral leadership in the local church. 

illuminate Church believes that men and women are equally gifted and qualified to lead and serve as co-laborers in the church. We do not simply permit, but expressly value, the presence of both men and women in these various facets of church leadership. The office of Elder is the one distinction that we see Biblically as pertaining to men.  The Greek word for Elder is always a masculine noun whereas the shepherd (pastor) is sometimes masculine and sometimes gender neutral.  Also, the Elder is asked explicitly to be the husband of but one wife (I Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6) Without trying to make the Bible say something other than what it says, the elder role is to be fulfilled by men as the Lord expresses in Scripture.