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The Practicing church

OUR VALUES

9/16/2022

2 Comments

 
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As a community, we have been in a process of articulating what we deeply love, what we are passionate about, and what matters most. Through a community process of discernment, we have come up with these collective values:

DEEP LISTENING
 
We listen deeply to the Spirit at work within our own stories, the stories of our neighbors, and the stories of our place until we become fully immersed in the mystery of God’s Story of love that heals us and heals the world.
 
Through deep listening, we embark on the journey inward coming home to the love we were created for. We cultivate sacred rhythms in which we are healed in the loving gaze of God in whom we live and move and have our being. We listen and attend to the Spirit’s deep work within us and through us. We embrace mystery, foster curiosity, hold paradox, and seek to understand the worlds of those who are different from us. We exchange certainty for empathy, resist easy platitudes, and enter into lament as well as celebration. We learn to listen deeply to our own stories, the stories of our neighbors, and the stories of our place in such a way that it provokes us, heals us, and calls us deeper into God’s Story of redemption in the world.
 
 
CREATIVE LIBERATION
 
Made in the divine image, we offer our creativity and gifts joining in God’s work to restore goodness, justice, and peace between us and God, neighbor, ourselves, and all of creation.
 
We are a community of artists, makers, and creators made in the image of God. The ultimate act of creativity is God’s redemption of the world back to its original vision of goodness. We step into our God-given vocation as co-creators to join God’s work of justice and healing in the world. Embarking on the journey outward, we become a launchpad of creative liberation: inspiring and equipping people to become creative activists and peace-making advocates of the Spirit in the contexts in which they live, work, and play. We join in the Jesus movement to bring good news to the poor and liberation to the oppressed, healing broken hearts, opening blind eyes, dismantling unjust systems, creating new social economies, and restoring the environment (Isaiah 61).
 
 
RADICAL HOSPITALITY
 
We extend the wide welcome, belonging, and generosity of the table of God — where the lonely become family, strangers become friends, the disgraced are honored, and enemies become allies in beloved community.
 
We extend the wide welcome, inclusive belonging, and lavish generosity of the table of God. Radical hospitality is the remedy for the isolation and shame we feel, infected with society’s message that we are never enough. We tear down the walls of fear and exclusion and move toward one another on the journey together in self-giving love and commitment. We receive with gratitude the gifts and stories of the other, while respectfully and unashamedly offering others our gifts and stories as well. We feast at the table of extravagant grace, entering into deep listening, vulnerable authenticity, mutual care, and a commitment to loving people, especially those left out and underappreciated. We value difference and make room for everyone at the table. We embrace the beloved community in all its beautiful diversity recognizing that our flourishing is bound up together.
 
 
EMBODIED PRACTICE
 
We practice the way of Jesus together embodying love in real time and real space with real people committed to the flourishing of a particular place — making God’s goodness as plain as day.
 
In a culture where church means shopping and consuming community and is often disembodied, incongruent, and largely disconnected from our everyday lives, we dare to imagine a beautiful alternative. We believe that living into the way of Jesus takes practice — and that our faith is much more than something we add to our already busy, stressed out lives, but rather, it is a way of life. We want to follow Jesus in the gritty stuff of our everyday lives where we see the consequences of our actions, where our faith becomes real and more than just mere talk. We are the church called to faithful presence — to embody love in real time and real space with real people committed to the flourishing of a particular place — making God’s goodness as plain as day. We encourage all to find their plot of the garden within the community and the neighborhood they live and get their hands dirty!

2 Comments
Gary Mendoza link
10/24/2022 11:45:38 pm

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Ryan Scott link
11/4/2022 07:50:20 pm

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