Together we commit to a life of humility, simplicity, purity, service, community, prayer, discipleship, and celebration.
Humility
- Seeking to imitate Christ, who emptied himself and took the form of a servant
- Gratefully recognizing our great privilege to minister among the needy as both a minister to Christ and with Christ as a co-laborer
- Guarding against the inclination to patronize the poor, remembering that our humility encourages their essential human dignity, reminding us and them that they too are fellow image bearers (imago Dei)
- Committing to live life in a humble posture—approachable, teachable, and committed to exhort each other in kindness and reconciliation with grace and unity in all things
Simplicity
- Recognizing that "the earth is the Lord's and all it contains" and that we own nothing
- Voluntarily accepting a lifestyle of living as simply as we can in our neighborhood, modeling a freedom from the culture’s captivity and lie that our value, station, and identity come through things, status, wealth, entertainment, and economic lifestyle
- Recognizing that we model Jesus to those less fortunate than us and therefore always seek to live with enough and more simply as Christ leads us
- Seeking freedom from the influence and lies that our culture tells us in regards to wealth, value, and station
- Exercising modesty and temperance in all things so that there may never be an offense to the gospel because of my covetousness (dress, entertainment, license, amusement, materialism, office, etc)
- Giving joyfully and generously of the resources God provides for us—individually and collectively—in order to see the healing of our city and our neighborhood, that they may experience Jesus
- Making the poor a value that is evidenced in our normal lifestyle, our advocacy, and defense of the poor—a real manifested value in our way of life
Purity
- Loving in freedom as Christ loves us
- Living in purity beyond chastity and asceticism within our present station to discovering liberating ways to pledge undivided love for and to Jesus Christ, to our community and and to our marriage partners (including future spouse for singles)
- Viewing singleness or marriage as a gift which God wants to use to his glory; a resource for which he will ultimately ask us to give account
- Honesty, transparency, and fidelity in our relationships with all whom we co-labor and with all to whom we minister
Service
- Compassion for others, irrespective of their spiritual condition, especially for the broken, the disenfranchised, and the poor, demonstrated by words and action
- Compassion and commitment for those who do not know Christ
- Incarnating the gospel in deed, living life in concert with our community using our gifts, talents, and skills to expand the Kingdom and the church, and to replicate our community so that the name of the Lord is renowned among the nations
- Incarnating the gospel in sign through our prophetic presence as a community and lifestyles contrasted against the culture’s presence for the establishment of the Kingdom, through our presence in proximity, lived in powerlessness and proclamation in gentleness
- Incarnating the gospel in word through the explanation and interpretation of the Gospel seen in our presence, behavior, interpreting the events in our lives that people will come to understand the whole of the Gospel–that Jesus saves us to Himself, living Kingdom ordained lives and eternally to the purpose for which the creation was originally made
- Obedience to the word of God, the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit of God, and the leadership God has ordained to lead Communitas and its mission to engage those beyond the reach of the church
Community
- Supporting those in our community and church in prayer, love, and reconciliation as well as in mission, personal pursuit of God’s will, and in our pursuit to imitate Jesus
- Expressing our gifts in concert and complement to our community
- Loving, encouraging, and empowering each other as we become more like Christ and move toward our ultimate contributions
- Willingly seeking and desiring to live interdependently—sharing our resources, belongings, and lives as Christ leads us
Prayer
- Through discipline and stillness before God—listening before speaking, meditating on his word, adhering to spiritually-sent counsel, and spending time in reflection and surrender before him
- Through intercession, being as Paul described "in labor" for others, recognizing that prayer is ministry
- Through mystical sharing, letting God borrow my voice to express his thoughts on behalf of the lost, the disenfranchised, and the poor as well as letting God, who has no need, invite me to participate in speaking his redemptive word
- Through surrendering our will and letting God set us aside to pray for an hour, a day, or a season, despite the world's notions of "effective activity"
- Through the kindling of our faith, remembering that prayer to God, who is unseen, opens the gate to faith, the conviction of things unseen
- Through transcendent ministry, remembering that God's Spirit is unfettered and passes beyond my physical boundaries
Discipleship
- A life of vulnerably to God and our fellow community members, allowing them to examine my life, speak truth, encourage me, and help me discern all things
- Living reconciled to God, therefore relating to him and allowing him to transform and make us according to his will and original intent
- Serving Jesus in a life surrendered to his sending
- Pursuing knowing God through each other, the context that informs us, the people we engage (saint and seeker), and his precious word
- Seeking to follow God together and to bring others with us
- Submitting to the mentors God places in our lives, allowing them access to those deepest places in order to speak with spiritual authority into who we are—challenging, encouraging, and instructing us—as well as allowing peers to speak with spiritual authority in our lives
Celebration
- Rejoicing as a child made in God’s image and passed from death to life by the saving work of Jesus my Lord, remembering with joy inexpressible that my name in God’s eternal record eclipses any record of my meager accomplishments
- Delighting in the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, reveling in his delight in us, being grounded in that love, and then delighting in our brothers and sisters around us
- Counting all things to be loss, we discover we have nothing to regret and, in gaining Christ, we find we have everything to celebrate, so we gratefully receive the table spread before us in the mystery of the body and blood of Jesus
- Celebrating with Jesus when he sets a banquet table for the needy, we rejoice in the privilege of being seated beside those the world makes last and God makes first as a sign of the upside down Kingdom of God; we will listen for the sound of rejoicing in heaven when those we minister among step into the light or even take a small step forward
- Celebrating that God waits home for us when we stray into overwork or overindulgence, we will savor the scent of the fatted calf, the comfort of the best robe, and the security of the Lord’s arms around us
- Remembering that in the beginning God paused to see the beauty around him and say, “It is good,” we will journey in the company of each other in expressing rhythms of praise to hallow what God has done, is doing, and will do, and will take comfort in recalling that persistent celebration rolls back the power of the enemy
I celebrate the light of Christ — in a world of darkness
the life of Christ — in a culture of death
the liberty of Christ — in a kingdom of captivity
and the hope of Christ — in an age of despair
I rejoice always and in everything give thanks.
