We are a church that seeks to provide spiritual development primarily through community. We aim to be a healthy local church, where friendships are a reality and where members are genuinely growing in grace and Christ-likeness through loving and caring relationships.
Even experts in doctrine can still be mired in spiritual blindness and deadness—unless the implications of the gospel are worked out practically through livingin community. Growth in grace and wisdom and character does not happen so much in classes as in deep family-type relationships and countercultural communities where the gospel’s distinct implications are lived out.
We are aware that a strong individualistic strain exists in culture today, so that often people will drop in to church for inspiration but will not give of themselves in service to the city or in community to one another. We believe that only a deep commitment to community will work the gospel into every part of our lives. We love it when new believers fall in love first with church life before they even understand their need for a saviour. Belonging before believing is a reality in our church.
Being Good News for a broken world means that our fellowship is not some kind of closed, inward focused set of nurturing relationships. In a missional church, Christian community must go beyond that to embody a counterculture, showing the world how radically different a Christian society is with regard to sex, money, and power.
- We aim to avoid both extremes of secular society’s idolisation of sex and traditional society’s fear of sex. We also exhibit love rather than hostility or fear toward those whose sexual life-patterns are different from ours.
- We aim to promote a radically generous commitment of time, money, relationships, and living space to social justice and the needs of the poor, immigrants and the economically and physically weak.
- We are committed to power sharing and relationship building among races and classes that are alienated outside of the body of Christ. We believe that a missional church must be deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice as we evangelise.