Our Dreams

Ours is a dream to be a modern-day tribe, a clan of people joined not by blood, but by a shared spiritual experience, strengthening one another for the spiritual journey, and helping one another make the earth a better place.

1. Ours is a dream of authentic spiritual community

We believe that the best possible environment for the human soul to grow is in spiritual friendship with others. We believe that God vested his image in each of us, that God gives us each gifts that are expressions of the Divine nature. It therefore behooves us to be in spiritual friendships with others, drawing from the gifts God has put in each of us.

So, we have dreams…

We dream of a community that looks past one another’s weaknesses to the truer self within.

We dream of a community that helps each other in our shortcomings rather than judging one another for them.

We dream of a community where inevitable hurts or offences we suffer at one another’s hands are reconciled.

We dream of a community that offers grace to one another in our imperfections.

We dream of a community that acts in one another’s best interests.

ascribing to one another the best possible motivations.
contending together for the realization of one another’s divine destinies.

2. Ours is a dream of free, vibrant, and communal spirituality

We believe that God’s Spirit resides in people and is relentlessly forming us into Divine likeness. As such, it’s not our job to straighten out one another’s lives. Instead, our focus is on strengthening our connection to, and awareness of, the Spirit of God within us. We do not have to fix human frailty when we see it. It’s not our job to make sure we look and act like respectable Christians. That is the job of the Holy Spirit within each of us. Ours is simply to increase our awareness of this internal Reality, and to love and help one another do the same.

So, we have dreams…

We dream of a community where people of greater or lesser spiritual development, greater or lesser orthodoxy, are all equally embraced

where people feel safe, loved, and drawn to the Spirit of God.

We dream of a community with diminished emphasis on dogma

a community drawing from diverse Christian traditions
a community honoring the varied experiences of our faith
a community that lives out the ancient axiom:
"In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity."

Further, while we are indeed orthodox Christians, we want to welcome people whose doubts and questions make them feel decidedly un-Christian.

A community with no belief prerequisite required before we accept people
It has been our experience that when people are accepted and given the freedom to believe what they will, their natural spiritual hunger and the presence of God’s Spirit is sufficient to open their hearts to any truth they need. That, we believe, is enough.

We dream of a community that listens carefully and obeys tenaciously

That’s our simple but central strategy for the spiritual journey; listen carefully for the Inner Voice of God’s Spirit, and tenaciously obey what we hear
Ours is a dream to live that simple strategy to its fullest.
To pursue the disciplines and practices that sensitize us to the Inner Voice
To encourage one another to follow the Voice
To completely surrender to the Divine heart:
Whatever you ask, we will do. Wherever you send, we will go.

3. Ours is a dream of making the earth a better place

Our sacred texts tell us that the nature of God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, forgiveness, grace, mercy, wisdom, etc. As the Divine nature shines more and more clearly from our lives, we dream of sharing goodness with the earth.

We first desire to bring this goodness to own families, friends, neighbors, and coworkers…

Listening for the promptings of God’s Spirit, responding in obedience to them, and then sharing God-gifts, and God-attributes with those we love

But we also dream of bringing these God-gifts and attributes to our city and world.

When we combine our abilities, wisdom, and experience, we are able to make the earth better to a degree that we could never accomplish alone
As God nudges us, it is our dream to organize our collective efforts to make life for other people "on earth as it is in heaven."