The way of Jesus is at the absolute center of the sort of life to which we aspire, and furthermore, God desires for the way of Jesus to be lived out in an embodied, day-to-day community we know as church. A thriving congregation takes time to dialogue and discern together where it comes from (story), what the church is (identity), and to what end it exists (mission).

A mature human body continually communicates and makes discernments as a sign of its health. Conversation is the primary means by which a congregation listens to and discerns the presence of the Spirit in their midst. Likewise, a church’s ability to talk and communicate across the congregational body is a sign of its health. 

A thriving congregation is an enfleshed community whose members prioritize proximate living with one another and their neighbors, and identify shared purposes and goods in common. This is not just about spending time together in small groups; it is about communion with one another over time, as we experience life’s many ups and downs and transitions.

A thriving congregation maintains a theology of gratitude, understanding themselves as mutually endowed with the gifts of the Spirit and cultivating these gifts through creative sharing of time, work, and leisure.

A place-based congregation conceives of itself as an integral part of the ecological and cultural fabric in which it resides, where the life of God flows through the church into the surrounding community, and from the surrounding community into the congregation.

Like Jesus, congregations practice hospitality with friends, wayfarers, strangers, and enemies alike, because we remember that we, too, have found hospitality as strangers and enemies in the arms of a loving God.

A thriving congregation identifies as a local expression of the mission of God characterized by a posture of “being with” neighbors, strangers, and enemies. We are ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation, repenting of all the harm we have done to our neighbors and all the well-intentioned things we do for our neighbors, and instead striving to learn how to simply be with our neighbors.