Mission & Vision

State Street Community Church is a just and generous expression of the Christian faith in downtown LaPorte, Indiana.

The vision of State Street Community Church is create a community of Christ followers that values a purposeful location, justice, generosity, humility, and meaningful relationships.

Following Christ’s incarnational example, we feel God’s calling to be located among the people we serve. The church meets downtown LaPorte for weekly worship, within walking distance of many LaPorte residents. The Pax Center is intentionally located in downtown LaPorte to provide residents clothing, food, and friendship. Our community gardens were established to serve our neighbors with education, nutrition, and community.

We believe that God has created humanity in love and goodness. Though brokenness exists in the forms of personal and systemic injustices, we feel a sense of calling to restorative justice where the wrongs of this world are made right again in our own lives, in the lives of our neighbors, and in this world. The Pax Center engages poverty, hunger, and loneliness, the preschool offers scholarships to increase access to early childhood education, and the community gardens reclaim blighted urban space to create a healthy community resource.

In response to Christ's example of radical self-giving love, we seek to give sacrificially for others. We are not afraid of scarcity because God provides abundantly. State Streeters generously give their time, energy, influence, and finances to support the work of love and justice for the broader community. The church provides visionary leadership and financial support to the Pax Center, the Brighton Street Green Space, and the Jackson Street Community Garden. State Streeters practice generosity in their relationships and the neighborhoods they inhabit. We consider kindness to be an essential component to reclaiming the art of good neighboring.

Faith best practiced is within a community that trusts that mercy triumphs over judgment; love is better than hate, and joy is better than cynicism. We seek to be good neighbors that embody the way of Christ through compassionate and kind engagement that honors everyone. To do this, the Pax Center hosts weekly community meals, inviting and embracing diverse table fellowships. Our coffeehouse space welcomes conversation, listening, and learning from one another. Classes and small groups provide safe environments for discussion, disagreement, and vulnerability. We seek to meet one another needs through programs and organic friendship. We build relationships through serving alongside one another in the common cause of Christ.

We are not afraid of uncertainty or tension in the pursuit of finding Christ. As we continue to discover the ultimate mystery of Christ’s love together, we seek to embody a humble orthodoxy that learns from other Christian expressions and movements throughout the history of the Church. Eucharist is open to all wishing to commune with Christ. State Street is free, but not bound, to the use of liturgical elements of worship. We reject simple platitudes in exchange for embracing the tension of the unknown. We value environments that foster fruitful conversation.