FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

 From time to time, people reach out with questions about Pearl Church or about how we approach certain theological, social or ethical issues. Below we’ve gathered some resources and responses that have been helpful as a conversation starter, in hopes these might be useful to others who find us.

  • At Pearl, we don’t have a doctrinal statement that we ask people to affirm in order to become members. Instead, we invite people into a set of rhythms: pondering together our Sacred Story which we find in scriptures and the history of the church; sharing at Jesus’ common table where all people belong; and we believe these lead to our lives being animated (moved, empowered, driven) by Divine love rather than animations of fear, shame, guilt, etc. Our rhythms do more than shape cognitive belief; they invite us into a way of living that shapes our hearts by God’s love.

    A good place to learn why this is our orientation is these two episodes of Pearl Church member Gary Conachan’s podcast. Gary interviewed Pastor Mike a few years back about our movement to rhythms over dogma, and our move to include LGBTQ persons at Pearl:

    There is a wide range of beliefs at Pearl about specific doctrines. Our desire is to welcome everyone to the Common Table and have deep, meaningful conversations that help us discern goodness, rather than drawing lines that exclude people before there is a relationship.

  • For many raised in the church, the Bible was presented as “inerrant” or “infallible”—without error and literally accurate. But this isn’t the only way to engage the Bible. Here are some helpful resources for re-imagining our relationship to the Bible:

    • Harmonization and Accommodation—article by Pastor Mike Roth which suggests an alternative way to read and make sense of Scripture

    • Pastor Mike’s podcast, Story and Table, includes two episodes on the Bible:

      • A Bible Story, part 1—In this episode, Mike tells two stories about the Bible’s formation, which drastically influence how we understand and read the Bible.

      • A Bible Story, part 2—In this episode, Mike dives into the Bible story, considering its inciting incident and climax. Depending on interpretation, the Bible story can be a horrifying tragedy or an enlivening comedy.

    • Moving it All Forward—this sermon series from Pearl Church in 2023 aims to hold the Bible as a library with a trajectory. As humanity grows and its apprehension of God becomes richer, we see a record of movement forward from sacrifice to gift, from vengeance to mercy, from exclusion to inclusion, from ideas of divine violence to demonstration of divine solidarity. We explore how passages that seem violent to us today, represented a move forward in the author’s time and culture—and how these stories can inspire us to look for where the Divine beckons us forward, today.

    In addition, we have a list of books you may find helpful on the Bible, including:

  • In 2015, Pearl Church broadened our marriage practice to make room for our pastors to perform same-sex weddings, and to affirm the full membership of LGBTQIA+ persons at every level of our community. Pastor Mike shared about the journey that led the church to make this affirmation in an interview with Pearl Church member Gary Conachan:

    We believe firmly in the inclusion of all people at our Common Table. Some previous sermons help express why we affirm the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ Christians:

    Finally, we have a list of books that express affirming theology, including

    The issue of being biblically informed is a complicated one because underlying any passage or verse is a more fundamental question, which is, “What is the Bible?” A secondary question then becomes, “How do I interpret the Bible?” Unfortunately, many people try to cite verses to either support or renounce certain ways of being without considering these questions. Doing so often results in a mishmash of inconsistent interpretation. For example, many people use a verse in Leviticus to renounce homosexuality but then ignore verses right around that verse about not wearing clothing with woven fabric. They’ll also point to verses about marriage being between a man and a women when other kinds of marriage weren’t considerations in human consciousness when the books of the Bible were written.

    With all of this in mind, Pastor Mike recorded a basic orientation to the Bible that could be helpful, as part of his podcast Story and Table:

    A really good book to consider on an alternative way to hold the Bible faithful is: