What We Believe

United Methodists affirm the historic creeds ( Apostle’s and Nicene ) of the Christian church.

We use a rubric for growing in the Christian faith called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral that draws upon Scripture, tradition, reason and experience as we attend to the Scripture way of salvation. For United Methodists, Scripture is considered the primary source andstandard for Christian doctrine. Tradition is experience and the witness of development and growth of the faith through the past centuries and in many nations and cultures. Experience is the individual's understanding and appropriating of the faith in the light of his or her own life. Through reason the individual Christian brings to bear on the Christian faith discerning and cogent thought. These four elements taken together bring the individual Christian to a mature and fulfilling understanding of the Christian faith and the required response of worship and service.

At Rochelle United Methodist Church we believe that God loves everyone. Without exception.

We experience this broad and generous love of God most clearly in Jesus Christ revealed foremost through the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.

At Rochelle UMC, we believe God's Spirit empowers us to follow Jesus by loving every one as he does. We strive to share in God's broad and generous love by first, celebrating that all persons are created in God’s image and are of sacred worth. Second, we strive to live with hearts, minds and doors that are open to everyone, including people of all ages, races, nationalities, sexual orientations, gender identities, and socio-economic or family status. At the same time, we recognize that we all fall short of this calling and so third, we repent of the attitudes and actions that have led to the pain of exclusion and discrimination within the church, society, and in our own lives as the Holy Spirit eliminates these attitudes and actions in our lives and in our community. Lastly, we recognize because of God's broad and generous love that we are a church of God's children who have widely varied experiences, opinions, and convictions but we believe that we can love alike, even though we may not think alike.

At least we try to be.

We think there is room for a wide range of ages, cultures, experiences and Christian spiritual practices and beliefs at Rochelle United Methodist Church. It isn't always easy being a community that can be diverse in some regards but very similar in others. By holding fast to Jesus' command to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves we manage the tension and seek to give witness to the awesomeness of our big God.

Which means that United Methodists have a few quirks:

• We believe that church should be a safe place to ask questions, express doubts, and wrestle with the issues of faith.

• We believe that everyone is invited to the Table of Grace and we practice open communion every month.

• We believe we are created in the image of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for loving relationships. We are invited into that loving relationship

through the self-giving of God in Jesus Christ and we live it out through the Holy Spirit in loving community and in mission to the world.

• We believe that prayer is what connects us to God and to one another.

• We believe that scripture is "God-breathed and is useful," but is also to be viewed through the narrative of God's love, the audience to which it

was written, the type of literature it is, and with the witness of the Holy Spirit to guide our understanding.

If you are curious about United Methodist beliefs visit the UMC What We Believe page or contact our Pastor to learn more.

As United Methodist Christians, we come from the theological heritage of John Wesley who saw grace as the Scripture way of salvation for all people.

Grace simply means God’s unearned and unmerited love for all people. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

We experience God’s grace in 4 different ways:

• Prevenient God’s loves us before we are aware of it and stirs in our hearts to draw us closer to God.

• Justifying That moment we realize God loves us despite that ways we’ve messed up. We come to accept that God’s loves us so much that God

sent Jesus to show us the Way, the Truth and the Life and because of that we know God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in

steadfast love and faithfulness and does not hold our sins against us.

• Sanctifying Having experience God’s love without having to earn it or deserve it stirs great change in our lives. God’s love transforms us regularly

and by committing ourselves to 5 core Christian practices with God’s help we follow Jesus as faithful disciples and God uses that to transform

the world.

• Perfecting No one is perfect. But we do think it is possible to experience God’s love perfectly in this life and in the kingdom of God.

Read more about the United Methodist understanding of God’s grace.

*If your are looking for the G.R.A.C.E homeschooling group that is one of our ministry partners.

Not sure about church in general? That's O.K. We understand and we are here to help you.

Rochelle United Methodist Church is a community of great people, some who've known each other since their childhood Sunday School days, some whose families have attended generation after generation since the congregation's inception over 170 years ago, and others who just found Jesus 3 days ago.

A community with strong ties to friendships, family, and history can be a bit intimidating to a newcomer.

But as much as these folks love their church, they also love Jesus. More than anything, they want others to know the hope in Christ that has sustained them throughout their lives. These are the kinds of folks who will be there for you through thick and thin. They've lived life's questions.

And so they want to make sure RUMC is a safe place to ask life's questions, to wrestle with what you believe and why and not be judged.

So simply come as you are and let God and others love you. That's all that coming to church needs to be.

And we know that when Jesus gets a hold of you, you will want to share that love as well!