Ethos & Practice
Ethos & Practice
On Earth as it is in Heaven
The Ethos & Practice of the People of God who have Received Mercy
Ethos
The Heart of Christ
The Heart of Christ is that of submission to the love we have received from the Father and offering little to no resistance to calls to love those the Father puts in our paths even when they present as enemies. We treat our adversaries as neighbours, our neighbours as kin and our kin as ourselves as loved by God. We love God by loving others.
The Mind of Christ
The Mind of Christ is the same as the heart; that of submission to the Father. It is ever changing to accommodate the Spirit of God as He unveils the truth of how things are to our eyes and minds. We are never to trust in our own understandings—not logic, not degrees, not what seems cut and dry. We submit every thought to captivity to Christ and work out our salvation with fear and trembling as the Scriptures say.
The Hands of Christ
The Hands of Christ serve God by serving others. The two outcomes are inseparable. When we think about serving God the next thought on our minds is how we can put other’s needs above our own in pursuit of service to God. The Hands and Heart of Christ are always linked. God is never served through the bypassing of love and is never loved through the bypassing of service.
The Feet of Christ
We call others to follow us as we follow Christ into laying down our lives for one another and the World. There is no other destination for the people of God than to lay down our lives for the world just as Jesus laid down His life for us. We do this when and where God calls us and employ the Heart, Mind and Hands of Christ to do so.
Practice
Our Primary Sources
We seek God whose testimony can be found in Creation, in His written Word and in His Spirit through the people of God who have received mercy. In these primary sources rests everything we need for life and godliness, ready for God’s unveiling to our eyes and hearts.
In and through God’s Testimony the good news of love from God is revealed to our hearts through which we enter into the people of God by accepting the love of Christ by faith and are made into new creations and bestowed with new hearts and new rights based on our new identity.
Our Polity
We celebrate those who lay down their lives in love and service of God—we elevate them to positions of observance that we may follow them as we follow Christ into laying down our lives for one another and the World. We recognise them in honour, respect and submission as having the same heart, mind, hands and feet as Christ. These are the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; full of the gospel and wisdom from God they are to be supported by all means ensuring the proper honour is paid to those who serve as mature examples for us.
Our Practice
We gather as often as we can to edify and encourage one another in the gospel of Jesus Christ who unifies us in love, faith and hope. We encourage one another with songs and hymns and spiritual songs and go before the Father together to attribute to God our safety, legitimacy and provision in all things. Our gatherings celebrate the One who died for us and was raised as the firstborn of a new creation for the salvation and unifying of all created things to the Father.
Our People
The people of God who have received mercy are innumerable and incomprehensibly varied. Our unity comes first in Love and then in Faith and Hope in the Gospel of Christ. We call all varieties of people indiscriminately to the table of God—no one is turned away because of anything in the flesh who would come to Christ and be transformed by the light of love into love.
Our Doctrine and Traditions
All doctrines and traditions are taught and practiced for the edification and enablement of love, faith and hope in the gospel. Each teaching reminds us of who God is, who we are in Christ, the spiritual rights that flow from our identity and the responsibility in love we have for one another to be the heart, mind, hands and feet of Christ to one another and the World.
Our Giving
We are a people on the way to lay down our lives for one another and the World. We own nothing that doesn’t serve this purpose, and when it has served its purpose we sell it and give to those who will need more tomorrow.
Our dependants include all those who cannot provide for themselves by nature of their disposition to the world be they orphans, widows, the sick, the imprisoned, or the otherwise outcast and displaced. We lay down our lives for them.
Our Work
In so far as it is possible we all work with our hands in the world or in our own businesses and concerns to provide for our own households and for our respective dependants so as not to be an unnecessary burden on those who are love bound to ensure our wellbeing as those whom we love as our ourselves.
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