Declaration of Doctrine and Religious Practice

Immanuel United Church Krisjiannis Dovageiste September 25, 2026

This Declaration brings together Immanuel United Church’s established doctrines, priestly labor doctrine, governance, membership commitments, forms of gathering, and enterprise designations. It expresses the Church’s faith and the practices through which that faith is lived.

Part I Foundational Doctrines — Articles 1–10

Part II Priestly Labor and Economic Ministry — Articles 11–21

Part III Governance and Membership — Articles 22–29

Part IV Accords of Anathema — Articles 30–32

Part V Forms of Gathering and Iconography — Articles 33–35

Part VI Church Enterprises — Article 36

Annex A Articles Provision and Adoption Record

Part I Foundational Doctrines

These ten stances identify convictions the Church considers particularly important, including those that distinguish it from several mainstream Christian traditions.

Article 1 Anti-sectarianism

Immanuel United Church teaches anti-sectarianism. This doctrine draws particularly from Jesus’s high-priestly prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Apostle Paul’s teaching that sectarianism is carnal.

Accordingly, the church does not encourage denominational identity. It encourages the oneness in Jesus of all believers. It holds a catholic mindset in the original sense of catholic: the one, universal church.

Immanuel United Church therefore denies and rebukes the idea that any particular denomination is exceptional, uniquely privileged, or constitutes a church separate from what Jesus calls his Church. The church affirms one Church, both visible and invisible.

Article 2 The Gathering as Feast and Fellowship

Immanuel United Church gathers to feast and fellowship. Our ordinary gathering is a generous shared meal in a church home, where believers meet as friends, catch up on life, encourage one another, unwind and enjoy one another’s company. The feast itself is our shared service.

We uphold a non-liturgical form of gathering. We do not dismiss every liturgical expression as an invalid expression of faith; we reject making such expressions the prescribed program or obligation of our ordinary assembly. Our gatherings have no scheduled sermon, congregational song service, corporate prayer, or worship leader directing a religious program. Neither a host nor a priest has a prescribed speaking or liturgical role. Friendship, hospitality, and recreation give the gathering its form.

We draw inspiration from the early believers’ fellowship and meals in their homes. We understand the call to gather as a call to sustain one another in love and faithful community. Paul’s confrontation with Peter over his withdrawal from eating with Gentile believers shows how seriously fellowship across ethnic boundaries matters to the gospel. Our shared table must express that fellowship without ethnic preference or exclusion.

We describe this aspiration as an ante-Catholic communion: our own term for seeking the simplicity of early Christian fellowship before the later institutional and liturgical forms from which we distinguish our practice.

Teaching remains freely available beyond the gathering. The church maintains a public online teaching library, accessible without charge to both members and non-members, with written teachings, audio or podcasts, videos, concordances, a biblical encyclopedia and other study resources as these are developed. Members may study independently, bring questions to their host or an appropriate church teacher, and discuss faith with friends throughout the week or over a meal. Such conversation does not become a sermon addressed to the assembled group. We gather to enjoy friendship with people whose conduct honors Jesus, without performative religious obligations.

Article 3 Anti-dualism — all things are sacred

Immanuel United Church vehemently denies a sacred–secular dichotomy. Scripture declares that the earth and everything in it belong to the Lord (Psalm 24:1; quoted in 1 Corinthians 10:26). In the post-resurrection Revelation, the One seated on the throne declares, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Therefore, the church does not divide faithful life into a sacred sphere and a secular sphere. Everything is sacred.

No faithful vocation, field of learning, ordinary relationship, or legitimate work lies outside the spiritual life. What a believer undertakes in faith and obedience to Jesus is spiritual service. English, medicine, cooking, education, commerce, friendship, and every other area of life may be approached through faith; none becomes religious only by being placed inside a church building or labeled a religious subject.

Anti-dualism does not mean that every act is righteous merely because a believer performs it. It means that no area of faithful life is inherently profane or spiritually irrelevant, and that the believer is to apply faith to the whole of life.

Article 4 Worship as Service

Closely related to anti-dualism is the doctrine of Worship as Service. Romans 12:1 is the central expression: Paul calls believers to offer their embodied lives to God, using a phrase translated variously as “true and proper worship,” “spiritual worship,” “spiritual service,” or “reasonable service.” Worship is therefore not confined to a scheduled religious program; it is the offering of one’s actual life and work to God.

Colossians 3:23–24 instructs believers to do their work heartily as for the Lord. James 1:27 identifies pure religion with practical care for people in distress, and Jesus teaches that service rendered to “the least of these” is rendered to him (Matthew 25:40). These passages support a theology in which serving people through one’s calling is service to Jesus and therefore worship.

A physician who heals the sick performs worship through that healing work. A merchant who brings accessible or discounted organic produce and groceries to an underserved community performs spiritual service through the faithful use of that calling. The same principle applies to every legitimate vocation and to ordinary relationships: doing the real work of Jesus for others is worship.

For this reason, Immanuel United Church does not define showing up on Sunday to sing songs, hear a sermon, or deliver a sermon as a “worship service.” Such activities do not become worship merely because they occur in a church setting. Worship is faithful service in everyday callings and relationships—the embodied work of Jesus carried into the world.

Relationship between these doctrines

Anti-dualism answers where the spiritual life occurs: everywhere, because all faithful life belongs to the Lord. Worship as Service answers what worship looks like: offering one’s life, vocation, relationships, and practical service to God by doing the work of Jesus for others.

Article 5 The Oneness of Allah Jesus

This doctrine is the cardinal creed governing everything Immanuel United Church does:

“Allah Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus is Schekeinah Yahweh incarnate.”

Immanuel United Church rejects every doctrine, diagram, formula, or interpretation that conflicts with this truth.

One—not merely “of one accord”

Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus spoke plainly about his divinity and his oneness with Yahweh. When he declared, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), the church understands one to mean one and the same God and person—not merely two beings who are “of one accord.”

The immediate response in John 10 confirms the gravity of his claim. His opponents picked up stones. When Jesus asked which good work justified stoning him, they answered that the issue was blasphemy: he was a man making himself God (John 10:31–33). Jesus did not withdraw the claim. He challenged their judgment, appealed to Scripture and his works, again described the Father as being in him and himself as being in the Father, and escaped when they again sought to arrest him (John 10:34–39).

Jesus later told Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” and continued, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:9–11). Thomas addressed the risen Jesus as “My Lord and my God,” and Jesus accepted his confession (John 20:28–29). The church therefore refuses any interpretation that makes Jesus merely a representative of God, a lesser divine being, or one divine person standing apart from another.

The Spirit of Yahweh is the Spirit of Jesus

Jesus promised that he would not leave his disciples orphaned but would come to them (John 14:16–18). He said that his departure was necessary and that, when he went, he would send the Helper (John 16:7). After the resurrection he promised, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). After his ascension, the promised Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost (Acts 1:4–9; 2:1–4).

Scripture speaks of the same indwelling Spirit as both “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9), and also as “the Spirit of his Son” (Galatians 4:6). Immanuel United Church therefore confesses that the Holy Spirit of Yahweh is the Holy Spirit of Jesus. This is not the activity of a divine being separate from Jesus: it is Jesus present with and within his people.

There is mystery in how the incarnate Jesus could ascend and send his Spirit, but there is no uncertainty in the church’s confession: Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus is Yahweh revealed in flesh, and the Holy Spirit is his Spirit.

Rejection of divided diagrams of God

A familiar triangular formula, commonly called the Shield of the Trinity or Scutum Fidei, places the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit at separate outer points. It says that each “is God,” while also saying that the Father “is not” the Son, the Son “is not” the Spirit, and the Spirit “is not” the Father.

Immanuel United Church rejects this formula as blatant Gnostic heresy because its “is not” propositions divide the identity of Yahweh and contradict the oneness confessed above.

How Immanuel United Church defines Gnosticism

Immanuel United Church does not use Gnosticism as the name of one bounded religion, institution or historical sect. It names a nebulous and intentionally duplicitous philosophical set of beliefs that can inhabit many religions and traditions. A belief system is Gnostic when it adopts the defining principles of that philosophy.

The church identifies at least two central Gnostic tenets:

1. that any path, or many paths, lead to God; and 2. that special or hidden knowledge is necessary for protection, survival, ascent or access to power.

The church reads Genesis 3 as the first biblical appearance of this Gnostic pattern. The serpent presents himself as possessing privileged knowledge about Eve’s true state of affairs, Yahweh’s motives and the power available to her. He portrays that special knowledge as necessary to overcome her limitation and promises that her eyes will be opened and that she will become like God.

Article 6 The Accords of Anathema

Immanuel United Church maintains and vigorously enforces the Accords of Anathema: cardinal membership agreements that every applicant must affirm before becoming an approved, registered member. Continued membership requires adherence to those agreements.

Following the discipline described in 1 Corinthians 5:1–13, the church does not tolerate within its communities cardinal wrongdoing or conduct fundamentally antithetical to Jesus. The full Accords are addressed through the membership process.

Article 7 Freedom from Tithing and Compulsory Giving

Immanuel United Church wholly rejects the popular doctrine that Christians or church members are required to tithe to a church. The church will not impose a ten-percent levy, a temple tax, compulsory giving, or any equivalent religious financial obligation upon its members.

The sons of the Kingdom are free

Matthew 17:24–27 provides the central statement. When Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax approached Peter and asked whether his teacher paid it. Peter answered yes. When Peter entered the house, Jesus spoke first and asked him from whom earthly kings collect duties and taxes: their own children or others. Peter answered that they collect from others. Jesus therefore declared that the children are free or exempt.

Jesus nevertheless instructed Peter to pay for them both from the coin found in the fish—not because the tax bound the sons of the Kingdom, but expressly to avoid giving offense. The payment was a voluntary accommodation by those whom Jesus had already declared free, not an acknowledgment of continuing religious liability.

The two-drachma temple assessment operated within the tithing-system context of Judaism: the old-covenant structure of compulsory financial support for the temple and its religious order. Immanuel United Church therefore treats the temple tax as a form and expression of that tithing system, not as a category that can be isolated from it to preserve mandatory Christian tithing. Jesus’s declaration establishes the controlling principle: the sons of the Kingdom are free and are not subjects from whom Yahweh exacts such a religious levy. The temple’s compulsory financial system belongs to the order superseded by Jesus’s authority and by the new covenant established in his blood (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 7:11–12; 8:13).

Giving without compulsion

The church distinguishes compulsory tithing from voluntary generosity. Under the new covenant, giving is freely determined by the giver rather than assessed by the church. Paul instructs each person to give what that person has decided in the heart, neither reluctantly nor under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7). Even when organizing a collection for believers in need, Paul directs people to set aside an amount in keeping with their income rather than prescribing a universal tithe (1 Corinthians 16:1–2).

Immanuel United Church may receive voluntary gifts and may invite members to support particular needs, but it will not teach that paying a tithe is a condition of faithfulness, membership, divine favor, or belonging in Jesus. No member owes the church a fixed percentage of income.

Article 8 The Rejection of National Idolatry

Immanuel United Church distinguishes affection for one’s country from idolatrous nationalism. We do not condemn appreciating, supporting, serving, or loving one’s country. We abhor the elevation of any nation, government, flag, military, or national cause above moral judgment and faithful obedience to Jesus.

No nation is beyond criticism. No act becomes righteous merely because one’s own country commits it. No believer is required to defend, excuse, or support conduct that contradicts the teachings and character of Jesus. Whenever national loyalty conflicts with allegiance to Jesus, allegiance to Jesus must prevail.

This doctrine applies equally to the United States, Israel, and every other nation. No earthly nation possesses a divine exemption from judgment, and no government is entitled to the unquestioning allegiance that belongs to Yahweh alone.

Article 9 The Primacy of the Holy Spirit and the Rejection of Bibliolatry

Immanuel United Church rejects bibliolatry: treating the Bible as an autonomous, self-interpreting or living authority; treating mastery of its text as mastery of truth; or using the book as a substitute for the living guidance of Jesus through his Holy Spirit. Jesus is Lord. The Holy Spirit—not the Bible—is the church’s guide into truth.

The Spirit guides into all truth

Before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples that he still had more to say than they could then bear. He promised that when the Spirit of truth came, the Spirit would guide them into all truth. The Spirit would speak what he heard, disclose what was to come, glorify Jesus, and receive from Jesus what he would make known to them. Jesus then declared that everything belonging to the Father is his (John 16:12–15).

In the same final discourse, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit, sent in his name, would teach the disciples all things and remind them of everything he had said (John 14:25–26). These promises assign the work of teaching, revealing, reminding and guiding into truth to the Holy Spirit. In continuity with the church’s confession of the oneness of Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus, the Spirit who performs this work is the Spirit of Jesus present with and within his people.

Scripture testifies; Jesus gives life

Jesus warned people who studied the Scriptures diligently because they believed that life was possessed within the texts themselves. He told them that those Scriptures testified about him, yet they refused to come to him to receive life. He further said that if they truly believed Moses, they would believe Jesus, because Moses wrote about him (John 5:39–47). Scriptural expertise therefore does not itself produce recognition of Jesus, possession of truth or spiritual life. A person may know the words, arguments and textual traditions extensively while completely missing the one to whom they point.

Immanuel United Church acknowledges Paul’s teaching that Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuke, correction and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:14–17). Useful does not mean that Scripture replaces the Holy Spirit, interprets itself, or independently imparts truth. Scripture is a valuable witness and instrument; the Holy Spirit is the living teacher who enables people to perceive, understand and receive the truth to which Scripture bears witness. As Paul also writes concerning new-covenant ministry, competence comes from God: the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:4–6).

The church’s order of authority

Truth does not originate in a book. Truth is revealed in Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus and made known by his Holy Spirit. The Bible contains and preserves testimony to that truth, but no one can find, possess or rightly wield that truth through textual study, intellectual effort, proof-texting or argument apart from the Holy Spirit.

The church therefore refuses to place the Bible above Jesus, beside Jesus, or in the place assigned by Jesus to his Spirit. It rejects the use of Scripture as an idol, a weapon of intellectual domination, or a means of proving oneself righteous while remaining deaf to the Spirit. Immanuel United Church reads and receives Scripture under the living guidance of the Holy Spirit, who alone guides the church into all truth.

Article 10 The Absolute Rejection of Calvinism

Immanuel United Church declares Calvinism a complete heresy. The church rejects it in all its forms and identifies its system of salvation and damnation as satanic fatalism: a theological structure that attributes to Yahweh the eternal selection of some people for saving grace while withholding that grace from others, then treats the resulting destinies as the expression of divine sovereignty.

Whatever distinctions Calvinists make among themselves, Immanuel United Church rejects every formulation in which saving grace is eternally withheld from some people by divine decree, the saving purpose of Jesus’s death is restricted to a predetermined elect, grace is made irresistible, or human destiny is fixed in a manner that denies a genuine human response to Yahweh. Such doctrines contradict the revelation that Yahweh desires all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3–6), does not desire anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9), provided atonement for the whole world (1 John 2:1–2), and can be resisted by people whom Jesus truly desired to gather (Matthew 23:37).

A Gnostic theology within Christendom

Under the church’s philosophical rather than genealogical definition of Gnosticism, Calvinism is a Gnostic belief system that arose within Christian theology. It divides humanity into a concealed spiritual caste of the elect and the reprobate or passed-over, makes salvation a privilege intentionally unavailable to others, and offers adherents a theological apparatus through which they claim knowledge of this otherwise hidden decree.

This system produces division and is rooted in profound spiritual arrogance: people are invited to understand themselves as the specially chosen recipients of irresistible grace while regarding others as people from whom Yahweh deliberately withheld the only grace that could save them. Immanuel United Church judges that picture of Yahweh to be antithetical to Jesus and destructive to human responsibility, humility, love and the unity of the Church.

John Calvin and the killing of Michael Servetus

The church will not detach Calvinist doctrine from John Calvin’s documented participation in the prosecution and execution of the theological dissenter Michael Servetus. Years before Servetus’s death, Calvin wrote that if Servetus came to Geneva and Calvin’s authority had effect, he would not permit Servetus to leave alive. Calvin later furnished material that helped secure proceedings against Servetus, instigated his arrest in Geneva, prosecuted the case, approved the death sentence and sought beheading rather than burning as the method of execution. The Geneva civil council imposed the sentence, but that fact does not erase Calvin’s purposeful participation.

Immanuel United Church therefore holds John Calvin morally responsible for murderous religious persecution. It refuses to honor him as a Christian teacher or to excuse his conduct as merely an error of his century. Killing a theological opponent is not a defense of Jesus, and a theology advanced through coercion and death bears fruit fundamentally opposed to him.

Membership and the Accords of Anathema

The rejection of Calvinism is not merely an academic disagreement. The Accords of Anathema will make adherence to or promotion of Calvinism incompatible with approved membership in Immanuel United Church. Calvinist teaching may not be preached, organized, defended or propagated within the church’s communities. The church’s public language will remain controlled and formal, but its boundary will be unequivocal.

Part II Priestly Labor and Economic Ministry

The Doctrine of Priestly Labor, Ecclesiastical Enterprise, and Economic Ministry develops and applies the Church’s doctrines of Anti-Dualism and Worship as Service. It was adopted September 24, 2026.

Article 11 Sacred Unity of Life

Immanuel United Church denies that faithful human life is divided into an inherently sacred sphere and an inherently secular sphere. The earth and everything in it belong to the Lord. Every legitimate vocation, field of learning, relationship, craft, profession, and form of productive labor may be offered to Allah Yeshua Ben Yosef Jesus in faith and obedience. When so offered and faithfully performed, that work is spiritual service and worship.

This doctrine does not declare every act righteous merely because a believer performs it. Work that violates the faith, discipline, ethics, or lawful ecclesiastical direction of the Church does not become holy by association. The doctrine instead establishes that no legitimate field of work is inherently profane, spiritually irrelevant, or excluded from ministry merely because its outward form is common to civil life.

Article 12 Priestly Labor

Priestly ministry consists of service assigned, authorized, recognized, or required by the Church pursuant to its faith, ecclesiastical order, and mission. It is not confined to preaching, presiding over ceremonies, classroom religious instruction, pastoral counseling, or work performed inside a sanctuary.

A priest may minister through intellectual, agricultural, culinary, mercantile, educational, artistic, administrative, charitable, technical, manual, or other legitimate labor. A priest's complete ecclesiastical appointment may consist of one such field of labor when the Church assigns that work as the priest's vocation and ministry.

The Church alone determines the religious meaning of an ecclesiastical office, the duties assigned to its priests, the spiritual discipline governing those duties, and whether a particular vocation constitutes priestly ministry within the Church.

Article 13 Ecclesiastical Enterprise

The Church may establish, own, control, supervise, support, or recognize enterprises through which it performs its religious mission. These enterprises are ecclesiastical organs when the Church creates or governs them for religious purposes and retains ecclesiastical authority over their mission, leadership, doctrine, and use of resources.

An ecclesiastical enterprise does not lose its religious character because it is separately incorporated, uses a trade name, employs specialized workers, enters contracts, sells goods or services, maintains regular operating hours, competes for customers, earns substantial revenue, or operates at commercial scale. The Church rejects outward resemblance to an ordinary civil business as a sufficient basis for reclassifying the enterprise or its appointed ministry as secular.

Article 14 Noncommercial Religious Purpose

For ecclesiastical purposes, a noncommercial Church enterprise is an undertaking organized and governed for the religious mission of the Church rather than for the private enrichment of owners, shareholders, clergy, directors, or other persons. It may conduct trade and operate at commercial scale while remaining noncommercial in religious purpose and institutional character.

Revenue earned by such an enterprise is Church revenue. After payment of lawful expenses, compensation, reserves, and obligations, its resources are devoted to the Church's ministries and institutional needs, including worship through service, education, seminaries, monasteries, hospitality, food ministry, charitable work, publishing, housing, missions, and the support of clergy and religious workers.

Article 15 Economic Ministry

Economic ministry is the faithful production, exchange, stewardship, and use of material resources in service to Jesus and the Church's mission. Earning revenue for the Church is capable of being priestly service. The amount of revenue, the scale of operations, and the ordinary economic form of the activity do not determine whether the ministry is religious.

A priest assigned to establish, operate, supervise, or labor within an ecclesiastical enterprise exercises economic ministry when the work is performed under Church authority for the Church's purposes. Such a priest may be responsible for production, quality, training, procurement, budgeting, scheduling, management, customer service, expansion, or other duties inherent in the assigned work.

Article 16 Food Hospitality and Baking Ministry

Feeding people, preparing food, practicing hospitality, breaking bread in fellowship, and sustaining the Church's institutions are religious service. Culinary work may express care, discipline, stewardship, beauty, nourishment, fellowship, almsgiving, and service to Jesus.

Baking and operating a Church-owned boulangerie may therefore constitute priestly ministry in full. A priest assigned to the boulangerie may perform baking, production, sanitation, procurement, training, management, sales, delivery, financial stewardship, or institutional leadership as the whole or principal substance of the priest's ecclesiastical appointment.

The fact that customers purchase bread or other goods does not convert the ministry into private commercial labor. The relevant ecclesiastical facts are the Church's ownership or control, religious purpose, ministerial appointment, discipline, use of income, and integration of the work into the Church's life and mission.

Article 17 Assignment and Ordination

Ordination establishes a priest's ecclesiastical status. Appointment assigns the priest's field of service. The Church may appoint priests to different ministries according to institutional need, spiritual calling, training, competence, discipline, and the Church's judgment.

No priest acquires an individual right to redefine assigned work as ministry contrary to the Church's doctrine or appointment. Ecclesiastical authority includes the power to establish qualifications, issue assignments, supervise performance, impose discipline, transfer duties, recognize completion of service, and remove or suspend an appointment.

Article 18 Institutional Structure and Church Arms

The Church may carry out its mission directly or through corporations, unincorporated ministries, monasteries, seminaries, schools, foundations, associations, trade names, and other controlled instrumentalities. The use of a separate legal entity does not alone sever ecclesiastical unity or determine religious identity.

The Church's governing authority determines, under church law, whether an institution is an arm, ministry, organ, or instrumentality of Immanuel United Church. Corporate documents should reflect this relationship accurately, and actual governance and financial practice should remain consistent with it.

Article 19 Civil Reclassification and Church Autonomy

The Church does not consent to a civil authority deciding that a vocation, enterprise, or priestly assignment is nonreligious merely because another organization could perform similar work or because the work produces ordinary goods, services, or revenue. Such reasoning substitutes a civil model of religion for the Church's doctrine.

The Church reserves every ecclesiastical, constitutional, statutory, administrative, and judicial objection available when a government actor burdens the Church by favoring liturgical, proselytizing, instructional, or other preferred forms of religion over the Church's doctrine of embodied service and priestly labor.

Article 20 Truthful Practice and Records

The Church shall maintain records that truthfully show how this doctrine is adopted and practiced. These may include ordination standards, appointment instruments, rules of priestly discipline, enterprise charters, governing resolutions, organizational charts, teaching materials, schedules, ministry reports, financial records, compensation records, and records showing the Church's ownership, control, and use of enterprise income.

No record shall be backdated or created to portray a practice that did not exist. The Church may develop its doctrine and institutions prospectively, and it shall identify adoption dates, amendments, and historical facts accurately.

Article 21 Scriptural Foundation

The Church adopts this doctrine in continuity with its existing doctrines of anti-dualism and Worship as Service. The following passages form part of its stated scriptural foundation:

Psalm 24:1 and 1 Corinthians 10:26 The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord.

Genesis 2:15 Human work and stewardship appear within God's ordering of life.

Exodus 31:1 through 11 Skill, craftsmanship, design, and material labor are empowered for sacred purpose.

Romans 12:1 Believers offer their embodied lives as worship and service.

1 Corinthians 10:31 Eating, drinking, and all faithful action are to be done to the glory of God.

Colossians 3:23 through 24 Work is to be performed heartily as for the Lord.

Matthew 25:35 through 40 Feeding and serving people in need are service rendered to Jesus.

James 1:27 Pure religion includes practical care for persons in distress.

Hebrews 13:2 and 1 Peter 4:9 through 10 Hospitality and stewardship of gifts are Christian service.

Acts 18:1 through 3 and Acts 20:33 through 35 Apostolic ministry coexisted with productive labor and material support.

Acts 2:42 through 47 Fellowship, shared resources, meals, and care belonged to the life of the earliest Church.

Part III Governance and Membership

Article 22 Governing Authority

Krisjiannis Dovageiste is the Church’s sole governing authority. He exercises the Church’s ecclesiastical leadership and directs its doctrine, institutional development, and administration.

Article 23 Church Administration

A designated church administrator oversees membership approval and approval of new hosts and groups. Krisjiannis Dovageiste performs these responsibilities initially and may designate administrators to carry them out under his authority, including in other localities.

A designated church administrator may also serve as a host. No new host may open a group without the administrator’s approval.

Article 24 Registry and Household Membership

Each adult must apply through the Church’s registry and affirm the Accords of Anathema individually. Children are included under the membership of their parents or guardians.

Church membership approval and admission to a particular local group are distinct decisions. Access to the relevant membership directory follows approved membership. Admission to a local group requires that group’s vote.

Article 25 Local Groups and Admission Votes

Local groups are circles of friends that grow primarily through word of mouth. A prospective host may invite friends and people the host meets to apply. Immediate families typically join together. Each group has a maximum of 30 people, including children.

Every admission requires a group vote. Each adult member has an equal vote, including the host. All votes are anonymous so that members can express their judgment without pressure.

Under the rule of two witnesses, any two adult members voting against a new admission block that admission. One objection alone does not block admission under the ordinary voting rule. Members are to share fellowship with people they have agreed to meet with.

A group may also vote to remove a member.

Article 26 Children’s Concerns and Paused Admissions

Children do not cast general votes approving or rejecting applicants. They may raise a complaint or explain a reason for dissent, including concerns about mistreatment of a child or bullying.

A child’s complaint must be taken seriously and investigated. Admission is paused while the concern is investigated. A substantiated complaint is recognized in the admission decision. The seriousness of a child’s report may warrant action without a second witness; the ordinary two-objection voting rule does not prevent the Church from investigating or pausing admission on the basis of one child’s report.

Article 27 Hosts and Chaplains

Every group has a chaplain. Hospitality and chaplaincy may be carried out by two people working together, or by one chaplain-host. The combined chaplain-host model is encouraged.

A host is principally responsible for hospitality. The host may provide the home, furnish and prepare the meal, or fulfill those responsibilities in cooperation with the chaplain. A gathering need not take place in the chaplain-host’s own home.

The chaplain attends to spiritual and community concerns, social interactions, scheduling, and the mediation of conflicts. The chaplain serves in a priestly capacity, communicates with the Church, and remains under its ecclesiastical order. This office does not carry a prescribed sermon or liturgical speaking role at the gathering.

A chaplain-host combines oversight of food production, preparation, and hospitality with the chaplain’s spiritual, social, and organizational responsibilities.

Prospective hosts must proceed through the registry, complete a thorough, elevated background check covering multiple areas, receive training in meal preparation, and obtain approval from a designated church administrator before opening a group.

Article 28 Community and Membership Information

The Church’s community is intended to support member profiles, private communication among friends, shared interests, meetings, and a calendar of activities.

Approved members may access the names, addresses, phone numbers, and general contact information of members of their own local group, including its host. Members of an interest group that spans several local groups may access the relevant contact information of fellow members of that interest group.

Wider city or neighborhood discovery provides general member information without direct contact details. Access to contact information follows the member’s relevant group relationships.

Article 29 Ecclesiastical Administration and Stewardship

Ecclesiastical Authority

The Church's designated ecclesiastical authority has exclusive authority under church law to define priestly ministry, recognize religious vocations, ordain and appoint clergy, assign fields of service, determine whether an entity or undertaking is an ecclesiastical organ, and interpret the doctrine stated in this packet.

Enterprise Establishment and Control

The Church may establish or recognize an ecclesiastical enterprise by written charter or resolution identifying its religious purpose, governing authority, relationship to the Church, leadership, use of income, recordkeeping duties, and applicable ecclesiastical discipline. The governing body shall maintain actual control consistent with the declared relationship.

Priestly Appointments

Each priestly appointment should identify the priest, ecclesiastical status, assigned ministry, supervising authority, principal duties, expected term or review process, compensation or support when applicable, formation requirements, and conditions of discipline, transfer, suspension, or removal.

Financial Stewardship

Enterprise receipts and assets shall be held and administered for the Church's religious purposes. Compensation may be paid for services actually rendered, and reasonable operating reserves may be maintained. No part of net earnings shall be distributed for private ownership gain. Financial records shall distinguish enterprise receipts, expenses, compensation, intercompany or inter-ministry transfers, restricted funds, and uses supporting the Church's mission.

Consistency of Governing Records

Enterprise articles, bylaws, operating agreements, assumed-name records, contracts, employment records, public descriptions, and financial practices should remain consistent with the Church's ecclesiastical determination. A separate legal form shall not be used to disguise private ownership or to state a relationship that the Church does not exercise in practice.

Part IV Accords of Anathema

Article 30 Affirmation and Continuing Membership

Each adult applicant must personally affirm these membership agreements. Children are included under their parents’ or guardians’ membership as provided in Article 24.

Article 31 Cardinal Conduct Commitments

The Church rejects sexism, abuse of children, and abuse of animals as conduct incompatible with its cardinal membership commitments. Violations of these commitments are grounds for exclusion from the Church’s communities and excommunication.

The Church’s discipline expresses its refusal to include conduct fundamentally antithetical to Jesus in its shared life. The Accords are membership agreements to which applicants give their assent before admission.

Article 32 Rejection of Calvinism as a Membership Commitment

Adherence to or promotion of Calvinism is incompatible with approved membership in Immanuel United Church. Calvinist teaching may not be preached, organized, defended, or propagated within the Church’s communities. This commitment implements the doctrine stated in Article 10.

Part V Forms of Gathering and Iconography

Article 33 The Ordinary Gathering

The ordinary gathering is a substantial brunch in a church home. The meal itself is the service. The host furnishes and prepares the meal; members generally bring nothing. Members meet, greet, eat, unwind, and enjoy friendship.

Conversation may concern faith, ordinary life, encouragement, or other matters friends wish to discuss. Neither the host nor the chaplain directs a scheduled sermon, corporate prayer, or congregational song service. Friendship, hospitality, and recreation give the gathering its form.

We gather to enjoy friendship with people whose conduct honors Jesus, without performative religious obligations.

Article 34 Teaching and Special Celebrations

The Church provides for a public online teaching library, accessible without charge to members and non-members. Its resources include written teachings, audio or podcasts, video, concordances, a biblical encyclopedia, and other materials for independent study as they are developed.

Members may bring questions to their host or chaplain and discuss faith with friends during the week or at a gathering. These conversations do not become a required sermon addressed to the assembled group.

A holiday celebration, such as Christmas, may have a distinct form that includes singing, a sermon-like contribution, or another liturgical expression. Such a celebration does not establish a liturgical program for the ordinary weekly gathering.

Article 35 The Schekeinah Jesus Cross

The Church’s primary emblem is the Schekeinah Jesus Cross. The equal-armed cross recalls Jesus’s crucifixion. Its serpent, crowned by a halo, recalls the bronze serpent Moses raised on a pole in the wilderness. Those bitten by venomous snakes could look upon it and live. Jesus connected this event with his own being lifted up; the serpent in the emblem therefore represents Jesus (Numbers 21:4–9; John 3:14–15).

The three circles represent three coils of the serpent around the pole. Their triangular arrangement also evokes 888: imaginatively connecting each pair with a crossing forms three figure-eights. This motif recalls the numerical value of Ἰησοῦς, the Greek name Jesus: 10 + 8 + 200 + 70 + 400 + 200 = 888.

The red color represents the blood of Jesus and his sacrifice.

Part VI Church Enterprises

Article 36 The Psalterhaus ORG and the Business Portfolio

I designate the following enterprise group and business portfolio for development under the Church’s authority and religious mission.

The Psalterhaus ORG

The Psalterhaus ORG, domain thepsalterhaus.org, is the designated overarching church-controlled enterprise group for publishing, filmmaking, the bakery, schools, fashion, and other businesses. Its designated symbol is the Schekeinah Jesus Star.

Intended business portfolio

The WezBoCo bakery.

Black David and DOVI SHAKHOR branding, including the fashion label.

DaviNegro bistro, with launch deferred.

Black David’s Grand Cantina.

Publishing, filmmaking, and schools.

Annex A Articles Provision and Adoption Record

Articles Provision

The following provision is approved for incorporation into the Articles.

This corporation is a religious corporation organized to constitute and govern Immanuel United Church and to establish, operate, supervise, and support its churches, priesthood, seminaries, monasteries, schools, ministries, ecclesiastical enterprises, and other religious instrumentalities. The Church teaches that faithful life is not divided into sacred and secular spheres; that legitimate labor performed in faith and obedience may constitute worship and ministry; and that priests may be appointed to intellectual, educational, charitable, culinary, agricultural, mercantile, artistic, administrative, manual, economic, and other forms of religious service. The corporation may conduct productive and revenue-generating activities, including enterprises operating at commercial scale, when governed for the Church's religious purposes rather than private gain. All such activities and their proceeds shall be administered in furtherance of the Church's religious mission, subject to the corporation's governing documents and applicable requirements governing nonprofit religious corporations.

Adoption of Priestly Labor and Governing Amendments

September 24, 2026 — Krisjiannis Dovageiste

I adopt the Doctrine of Priestly Labor, Ecclesiastical Enterprise, and Economic Ministry set out in Part II as part of Immanuel United Church’s Declaration of Doctrine and Religious Practice, effective September 24, 2026. It develops and applies our existing doctrines of Anti-Dualism and Worship as Service. It supplements those doctrines and does not replace the Church’s other established doctrinal positions.

As the Church’s sole governing authority, I approve the Articles clause in this Annex and adopt the bylaw provisions in Article 29. I direct their incorporation into the Church’s governing documents and preservation of this adoption record with the adopted text.

Declaration of Doctrine and Religious Practice