For over forty years, Salem has been a resilient church that has deeply rooted people of all ages in God’s eternal story. In our next chapter, we are seeking to become a people who are moved to bring God’s story to life in today’s culture. Therefore, in preparation of our 50th anniversary,
By October 2029, we will build and support a disciple-multiplying culture that launches 500+ disciples from salem into our city and the world to boldly build God’s kingdom starting where we live, work, study, and play.
The world in which we live is filled with injustice, poverty, hunger, violence, racism, corruption, etc. Another shooting, another war, another scandal or scam, the list goes on. Whether we see it on TV or phone, by hearing it through the walls, or perhaps by thinking through this past week in your own life, it's a brokenness that has a wide and varying impact on us and those around us. While Jesus' day looked a little different, it certainly had the same core issues. And yet, it's a brokenness that Jesus engaged daily. Not only that, he called us to do the same, saying, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21 - ESV). It's a life that requires a selfless service and extravagant love. But it's the most satisfying life this world has to offer.
The church is designed to be a community of people who are united around a clear vision of the real person, works and mission of Jesus...in the real context of the world in which we live. Yet, over the last twenty five years it's said that some forty million people have left the church. Why? Perhaps it's not because we got too much of Jesus, but rather too little of Jesus (or might we say a wrong view of Jesus). Inside each of us is a longing for the real Jesus. Not a modern, made up Jesus who fits our agenda, but the Jesus who had compassion for everyone and yet who taught with all authority. Jesus is most certainly the solution to our problem (life, death & resurrection), he's also our model to follow (how we live as Christians). So the question we're asking at Salem is, what if those two things came together in our lives as individuals and corporately as an entire church? What if together, we recaptured the heartbeat of the real, historical Jesus...starting where we live in Fargo/Moorhead?
