What We Believe
Simple, and centered on Christ
This fellowship is shaped by a short list of convictions: that Christ belongs at the center, love is how faith gets expressed, and nothing is added that Jesus never asked for.
Only Christ Is Holy
He alone is holy
No person, place, book, or building is holy in itself. Only Christ is holy. Scripture is a collection of human writings that points us toward Him; it helps reveal the world He entered and the way He taught His followers to live, but it is not an object of worship. We honor Christ, we learn from His words, and we measure everything, including our own traditions, against the life He actually lived.
No Tithing Required
Jesus never asked you to tithe
Jesus never asked you to tithe. Nowhere in His teaching did He set a percentage, demand a payment, or tie your standing with God to money. The tithe came out of the old law of Israel. It was a portion of crops and livestock brought to the temple to support the priests, keep the festivals, and feed the poor, all part of a wider system of sacrifices and temple rules. Jesus lived on the far side of that system and pointed past it. He did not replace the old temple with a new one that collected new dues. What He asked for instead was a heart turned toward other people, shown in plain acts: feed the hungry, help the poor, care for the sick, welcome the stranger, forgive freely.
Giving, in the way Christ taught it, is love in action rather than a requirement for belonging to Him. When it is real, it flows from compassion rather than obligation, and it is measured by the heart behind it, not the amount. Jesus praised the widow who gave two small coins over the wealthy who gave for attention, because generosity is about love, not arithmetic.
Many institutions have turned giving into a rule, a quota, or a weekly demand, and some even teach that God’s blessings can be purchased. None of this came from Jesus. God’s favor is not for sale, and no gift can earn what Christ freely gives. Any act of generosity should come from kindness and a desire to help others. It should never come from guilt or expectation.
Simply Christian Fellowship will never pressure anyone to give. There is no collection here, no expectation, and no guilt. If you feel moved to give, let it go straight to the work Jesus actually named. A food bank that keeps hungry families fed. A shelter or a street outreach for people with nowhere to sleep. Legal help for immigrants trying to stay together as a family. A neighbor whose rent or power bill is about to come due. Money given this way does what a tithe was always meant to do, which is meet real human need, and it never has to pass through a building fund or a religious leader’s paycheck to get there.
Wealth and the Kingdom
The camel and the needle
Jesus spoke about wealth more than almost any other subject, and He did not speak about it gently. When a rich young man walked away unwilling to give up what he owned, Jesus told His followers how hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Then He said it in an image no one could soften. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God.
None of this is about hating the wealthy or pretending money itself is evil. Jesus was warning about what money does to a heart. Wealth makes it easy to trust yourself instead of God, to look past the person begging on the corner, to build bigger barns while a neighbor goes without. The coins themselves are harmless. What harms us is the grip they take hold of, and the people we stop seeing once we have more than enough.
Jesus did not shame the rich young man. He invited him to sell what he had, give it to the poor, and come follow. When we share what we have and use it to lift someone else, that grip loosens. A rich person who feeds the hungry and welcomes the poor is walking toward the kingdom, camel and all.
Salvation and the Life
Faith is more than saying the words
Some people are taught that salvation is a sentence you repeat. Say the right words once, mean them for a moment, and you are done, safe forever, with nothing else asked of you. Jesus described something different. He warned that not everyone who calls Him Lord actually belongs to Him, and that some who said all the right things, and even did religious work in His name, would hear Him say He never knew them. Words that never become a life did not carry much weight in the way He spoke about it.
This is not about earning your way in. You cannot buy or perform your own salvation, and anyone who tells you it depends on being good enough has handed you a burden Christ never gave. Grace is a gift. What that gift does, when it is real, is slowly change how a person lives. A faith that never reaches your hands, never softens how you treat people, never turns you back toward love when you drift, is a faith that stayed in your mouth and went no further.
None of this asks for a perfect record. Everyone stumbles, and the point was never to be spotless. What matters is the direction you are facing, whether you keep turning back toward Christ and toward the people around you, however many times you fall. It is also not our place to decide who truly belongs to Him. That judgment is God’s alone. Our part is simpler, to tend our own hearts and to love in a way that shows we mean it.
Following Christ Through Action
Faith without works is lost
Faith is something we live, not something we claim. Jesus said the world would know His followers by their love, more than their words, their titles, or their beliefs spoken aloud. Faith without works is dead. A faith that never reaches another person, never feeds anyone, never forgives, never lifts a burden, is only an idea.
Calling ourselves Christians is not enough. We live it when we love our enemies, bless those who curse us, help the poor, feed the hungry, sit with the lonely, and welcome the ones others turn away. These are small, daily, ordinary acts of love rather than lofty spiritual achievements, and nothing beyond them is required.
Following Christ through action means letting compassion cost us something: our time, our comfort, our pride. It means choosing mercy when judgment is easier, and service when recognition is more tempting, walking the narrow path one kind act at a time.
No Infallible Human Intermediaries
No one stands between you and Christ
No person stands between you and Christ. You do not need a pastor’s permission, a priest’s blessing, a title, an office, or an institution to know Him. Jesus tore down that wall, speaking directly to fishermen, tax collectors, outcasts, and strangers, and inviting every one of them to follow with no gatekeeper in the way.
No man is created above another. Leaders can teach, encourage, and serve, but no human being is holy, infallible, or closer to God by rank. When people are told they must go through a particular person or institution to reach Christ, something has been added that Jesus never asked for. He is near to anyone who seeks Him honestly, not far off waiting behind a hierarchy.
Simply Christian Fellowship has no clergy set above its members, no chain of authority, and no one whose word is beyond question. We learn together, we correct one another gently, and we hold only Christ as holy, with every voice here a fellow traveler rather than a master.
What holds this fellowship together is simple: Christ at the center, and love as the way faith gets lived out.