We are glad you are here! Love of God is an intimate worshiping community located near downtown Waukesha. We aren't like a lot of worshiping communities you may be familiar with, so we thought we would do our best to describe ourselves to you.

• At Love of God, we believe in hospitality as one of the primary responsibilities of the Christian life. You truly are welcome here, and you are welcome as you are and for who you are. Rich or poor; employed or unemployed; home owner, renter, or homeless; married, partnered, or single; gay, straight, transgendered or bisexual; of any and every race and ethnicity; good looking or needing a make over - you are welcome here any time, and all the time. In keeping with good hospitality, we invite you to join us at your own pace and at your own comfort level. We won't rush you into committments you aren't ready to make.
  
• At Love of God, we believe in the Bible. We believe in the Bible not as a literal document, for it was never intended to be that way and has only been used that way by a vocal minority of Christians in the last 200 years. We believe that the Bible speaks to us today and has relevance for our lives because it is the story of the faith journey of the Hebrew and Christian people. We discuss and ask questions about that Bible freely because we believe in a God who is big enough to tolerate questions and doubt.
• At Love of God, we believe in prayer. We believe in praying for one another, and we believe in praying for the world around us. We also believe that if all we ever do in prayer is talk that we have missed the boat completely. We believe in the prayer of silence, and the prayer of meditation, and in the prayer of contemplation - and we practice and teach those things.
• At Love of God, we believe in social justice. We work actively to create the kingdom that Jesus spoke of - right here and right now. We believe that kingdom is not just some vision for after we die - rather we believe what Jesus said when he said the kingdom is among us. Our job is to work toward making the kingdom a reality everywhere.
• At Love of God, we believe that all people are "saved" - some of them just don't know it yet. Consequently, our job isn't to "save" anybody. Our job is to reassure them that God loves and accepts them just as they are, and to help them use that knowledge to create a new world.
• At Love of God we believe in inclusivity. Our membership is open to all who consider themselves members of our community. There are no hurdles to leap, no tests of orthodoxy, no requirements other than a desire to be present in community.

Important Contact Information

Generally speaking, both of our clergy are off on Sunday afternoons and evenings. However, clergy are always available in an emergency. To contact clergy at any time, please call 414.430.0888 for Bishop Craig or 414.333.3772 for Bishop Eron. If there is no answer, please leave a message and your call will be returned shortly.

The Sanctuary Church philosophy is that everyone is welcome. To be quite honest, a lot of church bodies say everybody is welcome, but when you investigate further, you discover that is not necessarily the case.

The notion of Sanctuary implies a place of refuge for all people. When we say our Church is a place of refuge, we mean the following things are true:

1. All people are welcome. You do not have to be a member to be welcome here, you do not have to act or believe a certain way to be welcome here - you are welcome here simply by virtue of your humanity and the fact that you are a child of God. Nobody can ever take that away from you.

2. There are no litmus tests of orthodoxy or right belief here. There is no one right way to believe. There are many paths that lead to God. Our way may not be your path, but you are welcome and respected here regardless of your path.

3. We do not excommunicate people and we do not presume to have the ability to separate people from God. We find such practices to be arrogant and idolatrous. As St. Paul wrote, "Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to seperate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39 CEV)

4. We find in the life and ministry of Jesus an acceptance and love of all people, as well as a preferential option for the poor and the outcast of society. Following his example, we open our doors and hearts to all. We also offer the sacraments and pastoral care to all people.

As a Sanctuary Church we offer respect and welcome to all people, no matter where they are on their spiritual journey. We strive to journey with them into the fullness of the people God created them to be. We commit to not interfere with that process in any way, but rather to offer our love and support at all times.

Thought to Consider

~Thomas Merton

Consider this.....

We have all, at one time or another, heard Church leaders make statements that would seem to indicate that God became trapped in the very system that God created. They say things like, "God had to sacrifice Jesus to satisfy God's sense of justice." Wouldn't that mean that God had made a terrible mistake? Wouldn't that mean that somehow God had created a system of justice only to discover, some years later, that the only way to satisfy that same system of justice would be to sacrifice the Son of God? And wouldn't that mean that God had made some sort of horrible mistake in which God had become trapped and couldn't find any way out but child sacrifice? Some would answer by saying that God's sense of justice isn't our sense of justice, but how can we possibly reconcile a loving God with a murdering God? How can we reconcile a God who would kill to satisfy a system of God's own making - in effect, that God would kill to please Godself - with any kind of being worthy of worship?

Come to Love of God Cathedral to hear a message of hope and love deeply rooted in the very same Bible that so many others use to intimidate and frighten. Come discover the reality that God loves all people and wants all people to come to salvation. Come worship a God who is truly loving, truly worthy of worship and praise!

Hospitality - the Heart of Christianity

Often folks are asked a question that goes something like, "What is the essence of Christianity?" I have heard a lot of answers to that question, most of them rather unsatisfactory. In essence, the Judeo-Christian tradition is a tradition of hospitality to all. Often times, particularly in the Hebrew Scriptures, God is described as becoming angry with God's people. Very often people have asserted some very strange reasons for God being angry, often having to do with the identity of the folks involved, when in truth the problem is a profound lack of hospitality.

For example, are we really to believe that in the story of Sodom that God found it to be OK that Lot offered up his daughters to be raped in exchange for the safety of the men whom the residents of Sodom were seeking to assault? Isn't it much more reasonable to look at God's discomfort with what happened there as having to do with a profound disregard for the value of hospitality?

In fact, when it comes right down to it, it would be very reasonable to say that God is intimately concerned with how we treat one another. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned are all profound acts of hospitality - and the heart of Christianity.

Great News!

You might find this hard to believe, but we will never, ever ask you to go knock on somebody's door and ask them any questions about what they believe, or where they are going to go when they die, or anything else for that matter.

Why not? Well, for two reasons. The first is that such behavior is, quite frankly, rude and intrusive. The second is that it simply is not our job to go out and "save" anybody. Why not? It has already happened. The notion that we are somehow separated from God and now need to claw our way back is an illusion. Most of us have been taught that we are separate from God, and we have believed that misinformation - but it is misinformation nevertheless.

We believe God wants us to share with other people the truth that God loves all people and wants all people to come to fullness of life. That reality is already accomplished through Christ consciousness. To learn more about Christ consciousness, visit us this Sunday!

Weekly Communion

At Love of God Cathedral, we celebrate Holy Communion every Sunday. All people are welcome to receive Communion in our Church, because we recognize that the Bible provides no indication that Jesus placed any restrictions on who participated at the Lord's Supper when he established the practice of Holy Eucharist (Communion). Therefore, we invite you to God's table with whatever understanding you have of the meaning of Communion. At its most basic level, Communion is a meal shared between friends. We believe that is sufficient reason to approach God's table and receive the Eucharist!