PRACTICES AND VALUES

Practice: Transformation / Value: Imagination

To see real and lasting transformation in ourselves, our community and the world it takes cultivating our collective imagination as the space in which we can dream of different possibilities together. 

• Curiosity | We believe in dialogue, the interplay of faith and doubt, the importance of asking questions, openness to the mystery of God and movement of the Spirit. Because we know that we do not have it all figured out. (Matthew 7:7-8; 1 John 4:18)

• Transformational Way of Jesus | We are grounded (but not limited by) a spacious Christian theology and seek to accompany folks on their spiritual journey wherever they are and however that looks! - we are not trying to convert anyone and welcome different ideas and opinions as a source of transformation. (1 John 4:16)

Practice: Resistance / Value: Justice

It is simply not enough to dream or imagine a different world, we must fight for it. We struggle for a just world by the ways in which we organize ourselves through collective acts of resistance.

• Anti-Racist | We believe that racism is anti-Christ and that Christ calls us more than simply being “not-racist.” Rather we believe that we must be committed to the active dismantling of hatred, bias, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific minority groups in Walker County. (Ephesians 2:14; Revelation 7:9-10)

• Anti-Mammon | We believe that poverty and economic class today are not ordained by God or by some kind of natural order, but are established by the exploitation that comes from the machinations of capitalism which can be overturned through the material and spiritual liberation taught by Jesus Christ. (Luke 4:16-19; James 5:2-6)

Practice: Interdependence / Value: Belonging

A culture of hyper individualism has left us alienated from one another and so in recognizing that everyone belongs we seek to cultivate a space of deepening interdependence and mutual flourishing.

• Collaboration | We will seek to partner with a variety of people and organizations that share our values in an effort to create something meaningful and positive for the people of Walker County. (Romans 12:4-5)

• Open & Affirming | We wholeheartedly celebrate people of every gender expression, sexuality, religion, and race as being made fully in the image of God - just as they are. (Galatians 3:28)

Practice: Liberation / Value: Wholeness

In the face of the fracturing forces of our world we value wholeness by embodying a holistic approach that seeks to tend to the material and spiritual needs of our community through a deep commitment to the work of mutual liberation.

• Solidarity Not Charity | We believe that solidarity, rather than charity, most accurately reflects the Kingdom of God. Charity is top-down aid that only addresses the symptoms of the issues present in our community while solidarity seeks to change the systemic problems from which the symptoms arise through horizontal acts of love and mutual aid. (Acts 2:44-45; 1 Corinthians 12:12)

• Well-Being | We care about the’ entire well-being: social, emotional, spiritual, physical, and intellectual of those in our community by embodying a holistic approach that is NOT exclusively focused on religion. (John 10:10)