Visit
Why visit King of Peace ?
One thing we need to be clear about up front is that we are people. Each one of us has a story of how Jesus came into our lives and rescued us, healed us, fixed the broken parts of our lives, and gave us a new identity and a new way of seeing the world. Jesus said that the healthy don’t need to see a doctor, the sick one do. He followed that by saying, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” We all have a sickness, called sin. It is like being born with a cancer and it influences every aspect of our lives. It causes us to rebel against God. The problem is that the same God we are rebelling against is the one who can cure the cancer. He sent his son Jesus to be our cure, to break the hold of the cancer, sin.
So don’t wait till you are cleaned up, or good enough, or have done enough right things to come, come as you are. Every one of us who follow Jesus has a story. Jesus found every one of us when we were a mess, when we were angry, depressed, anxious, or addicted. When you visit, you will find we all have some things in common. You will find that Jesus rescued us, loved us, gave us peace, delivered us out of darkness, broke the chains of our addictions, gave us hope, faith, and a family to be part of. So feel free to join us just as you are, because that is where we all are and why we need Jesus to rescue us.
Wherever you are in the journey, we want to invite you to join us and find out for yourself why we are so excited about Jesus.
Our Church
King of Peace is a small start-up church. We meet in the basement of Wesley United Methodist Church (8 North Street Salem, MA 01970) for our Sunday gatherings and we get together at peoples homes during the week. A parking lot is available on the corner of North St. (Rt. 114) and Lynde St.
For the next few months, we will be developing our church culture. We are knitting together the DNA of who we are as King of Peace. As we learn to be the church in our local community, we are looking at our values, core beliefs, and those things that make King of Peace distinctive from other churches.
One thing you will find out about our church is that while we all have a lot of friends outside of church, we also like to hang out together, so you can expect to get invited to dinner, a game night, or to join some others in the group as they go to an event in the city. In fact, we even encourage you to bring your friends along.
What to Expect
At a Sunday gathering, you can expect to be met by people who are happy to see you and look forward to exploring the Christian faith with you. The atmosphere is relaxed and the dress is casual.
Once the gathering starts, you can expect that we will Welcome everyone and then read from the Bible. We will then sing three or four songs together. You are welcome to join in with us, or just observe. We will take time early in the service to explain what we are doing and why, so if you have never been to a church gathering, we want to help you understand what is going on.
Later, we will sit and listen to an explanation of a part of the Bible that helps us understand who God is, how we relate to him though his son Jesus, and how we are to live as Christians today. After we explain the scripture for that day, you will see us sing and pray a little more and then all those who have been rescued by Jesus, and now follow him, will share in Communion.
When we share in Communion, we remember that Christ took our sin onto himself, that is, our breaking of God’s perfect laws, and the price of our breaking God’s laws, Jesus took onto himself, at the cross. In Communion we remember that Jesus was crucified because of our lawbreaking. On the cross, Jesus took on himself all of the wrath of God against our rebellion and lawbreaking, until God’s righteous anger was spent. In Communion we remember what Jesus did for us. The bread represents his body being broken on the cross for us. And the juice reminds us that his bled for our sin. He did all of that so that we could be declared right with God.
Finally we will say a blessing over all gathered and end that part of our gathering. After the will see people talking together and probably a few people praying for and with one another.
Food is a big part of what we do, so after the gathering we will take time to eat together. It is great time to get to meet others and get to know us better. It is also a great time to ask additional questions about the message or about what we believe. Questions are always welcome and so are you. We look forward to having you join us.
