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Our vision is to release communities of followers to live the mission of Jesus.
Here are some of the ways in which we articulate what we are doing that also provide a glimpse of some of the underlying values of this church.
“Community not consumer” – it is all too easy to have a ‘feed me’ attitude when it comes to church. We aren’t about coming to consume a product – we say that church is a lot more than that. It is about followers of Jesus gathering in the expectation that Jesus is the one “in whom all our hungers are satisfied”.
We also talk about ‘a community of communities’ – gathering together in different ways and not saying that the traditional way of holding services is the only way in which we can be church.
When asked how we define ‘church’ we say that ‘church’ is when a bunch of Jesus followers gather and do
UP – IN – OUT. UP is worship in some form or other. IN is building community and OUT is finding a way to share God’s love with the world in which we are set.
One of the key concepts we have worked with since the earliest days of the transition to a fresh expression of church is that of being a tent community with a tent mentality. We have found ourselves without church buildings which has enabled us to embrace a temporary nature to being church and a need to develop a mentality that is at heart simple and flexible.
We are inspired by the story of how the Hebrew people travelled towards the promised land being basically responsive to the guidance of God “At the Lord’s command they encamped, and at the Lord’s command they set out” - Numbers 9:23. We want to live in this way of
‘revelation and response’ – responding to God revealing himself and his way.
We set a high value on releasing leadership believing that that as followers of Christ are able to lead, then individuals, businesses, villages, towns and cities are transformed by the communities that these leaders form and envision.
We believe that all ages are able to live, love and lead like Jesus.
We also value our place in the Church of England as a fresh expression of church within the Anglican tradition. We find in the Lambeth Quadrilateral a four-point articulation of our Anglican identity.
- The Bible as containing all things necessary to salvation;
- The Creeds (specifically, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds), as the sufficient statement of Christian faith;
- The sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion
- The historic episcopate - recognising that in our relationship to our Bishop we can share in a creative accountablity.
We are influenced by rule of life of the Order of Mission and are involved in the New Wine movement. We prioritise partnership in mission with other churches. |
