Visions and values
Church without Walls is a new Christian community that is trying to work out what it means to follow Jesus and reflect God’s love in Broughton and Brooklands, Milton Keynes, today. In some ways we might seem a bit different to ‘normal’ church.
We don’t have our own building; we don’t have fixed ways of doing things; we don’t make any assumptions about what people know or believe about God.
Instead we are trying to understand what God is saying to us today, and to put this into effect in the life of our new Christian community here.
Church Without Walls has five core values:
LIVING LOVE, BLESSING OTHERS, GIVING GENEROUSLY, GROWING FAITH and PRAYING ALWAYS.
At the heart of this, is the belief that ALL people are made in God’s image and worthy of love and compassion. We believe that we see this throughout the Bible, from the opening of the first book (Genesis), but especially through the life and teaching of Jesus, who constantly spoke of loving our neighbours and of God’s inclusive message.
Specifically, Jesus spoke time and time again, not in general terms of loving our neighbour or acting with compassion, but in very specific and challenging terms. Amongst other things he taught clearly that: Our neighbours are not just those people who look, think, act like us. In fact, he purposely chose examples of people who those listening would have hated. When he spoke of examples of people who were acting in ways that reflect God’s love, he deliberately chose people, that his listeners would have seen no good in, been hateful towards and felt superior to.
At Church Without Walls, we have always sought to be open and inclusive, including acknowledging that with things like politics for example, there will always be room for differences about how people think the country, or the world could be a better place. And we believe, that as long as we are working together in the spirit of the values that we mention above, then we can find common ground to support each other and learn from each other. But our call to love others will put us against the idea that it is ever right to speak with hatred or encourage violence against another group of people because they are different to us.
We will always seek to be welcoming for all people. We will never want to see people treated differently just because they happen to look, think or act differently to us. We do not want to engage in any “culture wars”. We believe things like people’s gender identity and sexuality have no bearing at all on their worth and our call to love. We are all equally God’s children, and everyone has something wonderful to bring to our table.
In that spirit, as we go forward together, let’s look carefully at the voices that are calling for our attention. Are the voices trying to play to our fears or are they helping us to have more compassion? Are they helping us to engage and learn from those who are different from us or are they making us more scared?
Let us continue to be people who in following the way of Jesus are called to hold these values at the heart:
LIVING LOVE, BLESSING OTHERS, GIVING GENEROUSLY, GROWING FAITH and PRAYING ALWAYS.
Our story
Our Minister, Rev Ruth Maxey, has written the story of our new Church community. This link will take you to the PDF.
We also have a short video from early on in our church communities life that tells some of the story of how Church without Walls began and the people who are involved.
What we believe
We may be new but we are also part of the Church of God which has already lasted for 2000 years.
We believe in the same creeds (statements of belief) that most churches do, (though we won’t pretend that we fully understand all of them, or never struggle with them). We also realise that when people enter into a relationship with God it is a bigger, messier and more wonderful thing than any statement of beliefs can fully capture.
At the heart of our journey as a community of Jesus’ disciples, will be our vision for the coming year(s) which will help to direct our living and inform our planning. Such a vision is not an easy thing to state. It can’t be imposed but must be developed and owned by all of us.
Core values
As we move forward we need to agree some key themes (or signposts) for the coming year, trusting that God will give us the wisdom, discernment, patience and love we need to guide us. This is the important task that we are beginning and here is a first outline of five key themes.
Growing faith
As we live our lives and learn more of God’s love for us and for others, each of us will be challenged to grow in different ways. As a church community we want to support each other on this journey, learn from each other and walk alongside each other as we try to follow Jesus in our lives.
Praying always
We believe that human beings are designed to be in a relationship with God and prayer is part of that relationship and a gift from God.
We hope to find ways to encourage each other in our relationship with God, to find different ways of praying that suit our different personalities ,and to pray for ourselves, each other, Church without Walls and the other churches, our community, our country, and the world.
Living Love
Love lies at the very heart of God. This is best seen in his gift of Jesus and his invitation to become part of his family.
To be true to this calling, we must also be people of love: opening our hearts and lives as we love and value all people.
Jesus treated all people as if they had a worth that comes from being loved by God.
We want to try to love people the way Jesus did, being open to see the ways that God works even through the most unlikely people.
Blessing others
Time and again in the Bible and in the Church’s story there are examples of God blessing people – giving them his favour and protection – loving them in practical ways.
As we try to follow Jesus and to share God’s love, we are called to bless others and our world through our praying, our sharing, our giving, our teaching, our helping, our encouraging and our protecting.
Giving generously
We believe that we are called to be generous because God has been generous and loving to us.
What this looks like will be different for each of us depending on our own circumstances and the different gifts we have to share.
It might be that we are good at being there for others when they need us. It might be that we have different skills and talents that we can use to help others, or to make our little part of the world just that bit nicer.
It might be doing things that help in our community, or in the world. It might be giving financially to support local and global charities, and also supporting CWW and its Partnership churches. Whatever gifts, skills and talents each of us have, we want to encourage each other in them and to be a generous people.