COMMUNITY MEANS RESPECT FOR THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE IN A GROUP

Often with great curiosity people ask me what it is that holds the group together. They want to know what it is that will enable us to stick together and care for young people in the house over the long haul. Sometimes people will ask straight out if this is a ‘Christian thing' – and who knows exactly what people mean when they say something like that - but I hope on some level it’s a broader recognition that followers of Jesus are to seek meaningful connections with those who are disadvantaged in society. What holds us together is a shared hope in the dream that God has for this world, a hope that leaves us restless about the notion of sitting back and doing nothing at all. And for us to be able to do anything at all we need to come together. Partly we are bound together through the recognition that we need each other, that we are incomplete in and of ourselves and only truly reflect the image of God when we are in relationship with others.

As we share life together we recognise the importance of:

• Having a common goal/ethos – as a group we’re guided by a common purpose and identity that shapes the way we operate and ensures that we don’t drift too far from what we know to be good and true. We seek to follow Jesus at all costs and lay down our counter-agendas.
• The willingness to co-exist – commitment is crucial, when withdrawing from community remains an ever present option we adopt a real willingness to hang in there when things get rough.
• Diversity in Unity – while we place a high importance on protecting the unity of the group, within that unity must be a genuine freedom to be different.
• Equality – despite our differences - our gifts, experiences, resources and so on - we're all in the same boat, eat at the same table. This critiques our efforts to establish hierarchy or pecking order.

Pray that we'd hold tight to what we know we are called to, that we'd have the courage to hang in there with each other at all times, that we would value the unity that we have as a community without alienating individuals in the process.