Just as God took the initiative in pursuing a relationship with us, Christ-Followers are sent out into the world to live the story of Jesus among those who are “missing.”
God transforms our broken lives into people with a specific purpose to bring love and redemption to those who haven’t yet experienced a restored relationship with Christ.
We are, then, people on a spiritual journey to Salem and beyond. We long to engage our culture with the Gospel and intentionally create friendships
for the sake of loving others and letting Jesus be displayed. Because we believe that all of life should express our desire to follow Jesus
(there really is no distinction between “secular” and “sacred”), we want to walk with others on the journey of faith.
lived behaviors
Adopt-a-Neighborhood. Some people adopt a street; we decided to adopt an entire neighborhood. Working with the city of Salem, Soma just recently adopted the Edgewater area of West Salem, which involved cleaning the local area as well as connecting residents to service projects that we’re doing. Eventually, we’d like to establish block servants who look for creative ways to care for their neighbors.
Community Service Outreach. Generally, these take place once a month in the surrounding community of Soma or beyond. This is Soma's way of living out an active faith (rather than just talking about it). Usually, these are larger service opportunities in the local community where we are meeting the physical needs of those around us or of the environment around us.
Church Planting. Soma is part of a larger network of new churches (see Kairos Church Planting for more information) and is partnering with the Southwest Church of Christ in order to launch. We believe in planting healthy, missional churches that reproduce and will begin setting aside 10% of our general offering after our October 2008 launch to go towards church planting.