Vision/Values/Strategies
When we set set out to start a new church in Barrhaven, we were excited at the prospect of starting something new, being pioneers. When you start with a blank slate, you create what you've always imagined. We had lots of ideas, but a whole lot of blanks as well.
The development of our vision (easy), values (harder) and strategies (ok, this was tough) guided us through discovering what we wanted church to look like. We hope you see some of yourself in here.
Vision:
"Love God, help people, build community"
Values and Strategies:
Reliant, Responsive, Real, Relevant, Reproducing
Reliant
"Realizing that true fulfillment in life comes from an intimate, transforming relationship with God, an understanding of who He is and a commitment to what He desires"
Devotion to the Bible
We believe that the Bible is given by God to us, our culture and our world. As such, we desire its wisdom and teaching to shape our understanding of God, determine our values and guide our practices. As God's faithful people have done for millennia, we want to let it speak to us, through careful and reasoned interpretation, rather than simply using it or manipulating it to say what is comfortable or easy, and so be transformed by God's power working through it.
Passionate Worship & Prayer
While worship is demonstrated in everything we do, it is expressed specifically when, alongside God's people, our full attention and adoration is directed away from ourselves and onto God, in recognition of His greatness and our utter dependence on Him. Prayer is evoked in these times as well, as we tell Him our feelings, desires and needs, seek His wisdom and guidance, and listen for His direction and leading in our hectic, selfish lives. We want to do everything we can to encourage and cultivate these experiences every time we gather together, which will be marked by intimacy, diversity of expression and unity of desire.
Responsive
"Demonstrating God's love in Barrhaven and around the world by meeting needs - spiritual, physical and emotional - in creative and meaningful ways"
Engagement
We will work to identify specific needs in our local community that we can meet through mobilizing our people and resources, rather than waiting for needs to be presented to us. Our goal is to be an "inside-out church" that engages people in their lives and needs, by doing what we can do, well, to help. To that end, our neighbourhood House Churches will be the environment where faith grows, leaders develop, and teams are built, in order to live out the love of God.
Involvement
There is a God-designed place here for anyone who is willing to make a valued contribution towards meeting needs, regardless of where they are at in their spiritual journey. Rather than merely being spectators or mere consumers, we want people to discover where they can make a difference and then, as part of a team that will provide support, accountability and synergy, begin to do so.
Real
"Modeling and teaching an atmosphere of grace, openness and acceptance, contrary to our busy and image-driven world, where life-giving relationships with God and people are formed, nurtured, and restored"
"No Perfect People Allowed"
God sees as we truly are, and loves us anyway. However, for too long we have pretended that we had it all together, and then acted surprised when the opposite was revealed. Instead of hiding behind masks or pretenses, we want to be able to be honest and genuine before God and each other, putting substance ahead of image. Only then will we be able to embrace and demonstrate the beautiful change that God is slowly working in us. There is a place here for you, right now, no matter who you are, what you've done or what you've been through, to belong and to experience the love and acceptance of God and His people. We're all broken in some way - and as we allow Him to do so, God is putting us back together better than before.
Embrace Diversity
God has created each of us to be unique. Rather than trying to eliminate or minimize those differences, we want to value them, by making the most of diverse spiritual backgrounds and journeys, opinions and tastes. We want to explore and discuss difficult issues instead of being divided by them, in a relational environment where people are free to differ and even doubt, as we grow together and learn to love and serve God and each other.
Relevant
"Finding and furthering connections between church, Christ and culture in our beautiful, screwed-up world"
Intentional Communication
We want to share the message of God's love with clarity, creativity and courage, at every opportunity. In a world of conflicting messages that vie for our attention, we must find cultural points of contact in order to cut through the clutter. We will do this to ensure that the story we have to tell is both understood and recognized as personally important and necessary, with a choice to be made.
Practicing Justice and Compassion
God has created people with a desire to help each other, as well as with a broad, generally shared understanding of right and wrong. We want to tap into these inborn characteristics to work for justice and show compassion in our world, as we demonstrate the love and life of Christ. To be as effective as possible, we want to work with those already practicing justice and compassion, who are demonstrating commitment and expertise both here and around the world.Reproductive
Reproductive
"Helping to start and nurture new communities, in order to multiply our effectiveness in showing the love of Christ"
Entrepreneurs
New communities of God's people start with a person to whom God entrusts an idea - a mental picture of what should be and what could be. At the right time, God will then surround that person with others, and community will naturally begin. However, it starts with a person who is so captured by a God-given vision that they are willing to risk and sacrifice everything for it to come to completion, without settling for less along the way. We will look for those people, both from within and outside ourselves, that God has designed to be catalysts for new communities of our faith, and we will mentor, train and walk alongside them as they do so.
Small Is Beautiful
Life is made meaningful through relationships, but when a community grows too large, relationships are more easily lost or diminished. Choosing to start new communities alongside our own, rather than merely grow a single one, will help our relationships to stay strong and what we do to remain meaningful. As these small communities work together as a family, relationships will be strengthened and the cycle will repeat itself. We will take full advantage of our size and work to ensure that we remain healthy as we do.