Who We Are

At Harbor Anglican our mission is to be a gospel-centered, Spirit-empowered, sacramental presence in the heart of Seattle that seeks to make devoted followers of Jesus Christ who take faithful risks for God’s kingdom. Our vision is simple and God sized: to see the city of Seattle become more like the heavenly city of God. To that end, we are anchored in the following set of values, beliefs, and practices.

OUR VALUES

Anchoring our mission and our vision are a particular set of values. Born out of our commitment to the gospel, the rich tradition we inhabit, and our calling to Seattle, we have framed these set of values around three movements: upward, inward, and outward. God at work. In us. Through Us.

Upward: God at Work

  • Truth: God’s revealed truth of Himself as startling offensive and unbelievably attractive, laid out in the Bible and faithfully expressed in the church’s ancient creeds & historic confessions

  • Grace: God’s self-giving grace as the free, unmerited means by which we are reconciled to Him, continually forgiven, cleansed, fed, and motivated to follow Jesus in joyful obedience

  • Identity: God’s bestowal of our foundational identity as not earned or chosen but received in Christ as adopted sons and daughters

Inward: In us

  • Hospitality: Finding our true home in God’s kingdom among his people and extending the hospitality we have received to strangers

  • Safety: God’s safe shelter of us which allows us to embody a culture of safety where people can open themselves up to trust, healing, and holiness

  • Formation: Learning and cultivating the way of Jesus in our lives through the historic rhythms of the church

Outward: Through us

  • City: God’s placement of us in the heart of Seattle — we are a city church, desiring to work with others in pursuing the well-being of our city

  • Beauty: The beauty of what God has done and is doing, and especially how we might reflect that beauty in the beauty-starved places of our city

  • Vocation: Our vocations as not secondary to our Christian faith, but rather as the primary channels through which God touches the world, both redemptively and for the common good— from technology and the arts to homemaking and the academy

OUR BELIEFS

As Anglicans we see ourselves as part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church. With roots going back to early church, historic Anglicanism is a branch of the catholic church that was reformed in the 16th century. Specifically, we hold to the following:

  • The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be God’s Word written, containing all that is necessary for salvation.

  • The orthodox Christian creeds, namely the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed together with the Chalcedonian Definition.

  • The Thirty-nine Articles as containing foundational doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

  • The Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture. 

  • The Jerusalem Declaration as charting a way forward that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the beauty of orthodoxy which underpins our Anglican identity.

OUR PRACTICES

  • We are Biblical. With special emphasis on the reading and study of God’s Word, we believe the Bible is to shape our imaginations, worship, values, practices and common life. We believe all Scripture is God-breathed and proclaims Jesus Christ as Lord who was crucified and risen for the salvation of the world.

  • We are sacramental. Seeing the two dominical (meaning of the Lord) sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as foundational to our life in Christ and his Church, we believe God graciously extends his forgiveness and life to us through the created, ordinary means of water, bread, and wine. Renewed by God’s grace, we are then led to see all of creation as a gift that participates in its Creator.

  • We are liturgical. Rooted in the rhythms and beauty of worship that have been shaped over the centuries, we are a liturgical church that practices holistic Christian formation that involves the head, the heart, and the body, emphasizing imagination as well as information, and producing disciples with gospel-shaped desires.  We believe that liturgy is a form of hospitality, enabling people from all walks of life to participate together in worship. Anglicans around the world use what is called the Book of Common Prayer, which is most simply “the Bible arranged for worship” and helps direct our worship and practices.

  • We are communal. In all of life, be it highs or lows, from welcoming a child into the world, to burying a loved one, to praying the Daily Office, to journeying through church year, we seek to live out our faith together and not as isolated individuals.

  • We are missional. Following in line with the Apostles, we are a sent people. We’ve been given a commission to carry on the work of Jesus, spreading the news of his resurrection and reign as far and wide as possible. To be missional is to understand that we exist as an outpost of God’s kingdom for the sake of others.

To help you navigate the often strange language of Anglicanism, here is an Anglican Glossary that contains all of the weird words you will hear us say (e.g., cassock, collect, oblation, etc.).