An INTERSECTION is a place where two or more roads, individuals or even ideas converge, diverge, meet or cross paths. INTERSECTIONS could be dangerous if not properly navigated. But, they can also be points of great life transformation.
We began wondering what it would look like to try to intentionally encounter God in the INTERSECTIONS of life, work and art. INTERSECTIONS is an online magazine dedicated to that pursuit.
Welcome to INTERSECTIONS: Encountering God in life, work and art.
INTERSECTIONS is a ministry of Engage: A Church Movement and Urban Heights Covenant Church. Both are part of the Evangelical Covenant Church denomination.
The ECC is a rapidly growing multiethnic denomination in the United States and Canada with ministries on five continents of the world. Founded in 1885 by Swedish immigrants, the ECC values the Bible as the word of God, the gift of God’s grace and ever-deepening spiritual life that comes through a faith with Jesus Christ, the importance of extending God’s love and compassion to a hurting world, and the strength that comes from unity within diversity.
The Evangelical Covenant Church is:
- Evangelical, but not exclusive
- Biblical, but not doctrinaire
- Traditional, but not rigid
- Congregational, but not independent
The ECC upholds six affirmations.
We affirm the centrality of the word of God.
This reliance on the Bible leads us to affirm both men and women as ordained ministers and at every level of leadership. It is the reason we pursue ethnic diversity in our church and is the inspiration for every act of compassion, mercy and justice.
We affirm the necessity of the new birth.
New birth in Christ means committing ourselves to him and receiving forgiveness, acceptance, and eternal life. God forms and transforms us—and it is through people transformed by Christ that God transforms the world.
We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the Church.
The early Covenanters were known as “Mission Friends”— people of shared faith who came together to carry out God’s mission both far and near. The Great Commission sends us out into all the world to make disciples. The Great Commandment calls us to love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves.
We affirm the Church as a fellowship of believers.
The church is not an institution, organization or building. It is a grace-filled fellowship of believers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ.
We affirm a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit.
We believe it is the Holy Spirit who instills in our hearts a desire to turn to Christ, and who assures us that Christ dwells within us.
We affirm the reality of freedom in Christ.
This freedom means that we are set free from the power of those things that on their own tend to divide. United in Christ, we offer freedom to one another to differ on issues of belief or practice where the biblical and historical record seems to allow for a variety of interpretations of the will and purposes of God. We seek to focus on what unites us as followers of Christ, rather than on what divides us.