Our Beliefs & Values

Salford Elim Church holds to the basic Christian beliefs shared by many people all over the world. They are written down in a systematic way on the national Elim website. If you want to check this out, please go and see what we subscribe to.

Our values, however, are specific to this local church. The values shape what we do together and focus our direction as a church. They sound really simple, but take a lifetime to work through.

They are that we will be:

A church where people encounter God

We believe that in Jesus, God was revealed to a world that needs to know his love and forgiveness. But that was not just a historical fact; we believe that when we come together the Holy Spirit brings us together and draws us into God’s presence so that we can encounter him again in the midst of the reality of our lives.

A church of friends

We want to be a community where real friendships are at the heart of our lives together. So we don’t want to be big on hierarchies or titles or positions. Friendships take time to develop and demand give and take, but we know that they are worth the effort. We need each other.

A church where everyone is necessary and all have gifts that can be used

We know that everyone is different – because of our pasts, our experiences and the gifts that God gives us. We all have something to offer, we all have something to receive. We want to work together to get to the place where all our gifts and talents can become a rich kaleidoscope that is an amazing beauty.

A place of Grace – we will not push or force anyone to do anything

We believe that God never pushes, but does draw us out of ourselves with love. So we want to give people plenty of space to respond to the pace that God sets for us. Our Christian walk is exactly that – a walk. We walk at different paces at different times and we start from different points, but we know that we can walk towards the future that God has for us all.

Our vision

This is how we want to make our values and our beliefs reality. We are to be a growing church of worshippers who love and respect each other and can present the good news of Jesus to people of all ages and all backgrounds effectively.

The way the church is shaped

Neil and Mary are the pastors of the church. There are also a number of small teams with coordinators who together oversee the direction of the church.

We meet for joint worship on Sundays at 10.30am, and have various other meetings throughout the week – see our calendar for more details.

Why do we meet in an Anglican church?

We share the church of Holy Angels. A number of years ago, we found ourselves needing a building to worship in. Holy Angels kindly agreed to us using their building. Our relationship with the church has grown over the years. Our hope is that we will develop many congregations that will use the church building at many different times throughout the week. Our world is one where the things that we want are available almost on a 24/7 basis. We think that church should be equally accessible to people.