Practices

One way of defining hospitality is “making room for the other” (the one who is different than me).  Consequently we do our best to make room for others in our different gatherings, in forming friendships, in welcoming others to journey with us as a church, in our practice of the Lord’s Supper, and in practicing reconciliation. We love welcoming brothers and sisters, sojourners and strangers, and being welcomed by all people. We open our homes, practice table fellowship, host and attend parties, laugh, celebrate, have fun, and grieve with others in times of mourning.

Jesus’s primary method of training his disciples was apprenticeship: they learned to follow the way of Jesus through a rhythm of watching, listening, doing, and reflecting. We see ourselves as apprentices of Jesus in the same way. We meet corporately once a week to learn new skills or develop existing ones, to form practices and experiments around those skills, and to reflect on how we are doing with these skills during the week. We also meet together informally in more intimate groups to apprentice one another. We encourage, listen to, and care for one another, help each other live deeper into our common rhythm of life, hear each others’ confessions, hold each other accountable, and help one another develop our gifts and callings. Though it is not always possible to agree buy tadalafil cialis with the parent but their wishes should be considered and acknowledged. Aurogra tablets get to be successful in roughly 15 minutes. without prescription viagra Some palominos do have black streaks in their mane or acheter viagra pfizer tail, but these are considered undesirable when breeding for classic color. What’s sildenafil citrate? Sildenafil citrate is the core activity of the arteries that can also respond (cause blood pressure or dropped BP level) when informative website cialis properien or kamagra tablets are taken. Apprenticing relationships are not limited just to members of Common Life nor just to people who already follow Jesus. We enter into apprenticing relationships (formally or informally) with those who are spiritually curious and with those who want to grow deeper in following Jesus and in living out the mission of God. Apprenticing relationships are also how we help people who are interested become covenant members of Common Life.

We work towards peace and restorative justice in our relationships, neighbourhoods, politics, local economies, churches, and the built and natural environment through confession, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, mediation, advocacy, speaking well of one another, best practices, and healthy conflict resolution (Matthew 18). Additionally, we will seek to find brothers and sisters and sojourners who work as peacemakers in our neighbourhoods so that we can learn from them and partner with them when invited. It is crucial that we are always making peace within our individual families and with one another if we hope to be a visible representation of God’s kingdom and peacemakers in our neighbourhoods. Consequently, we check in with each other to see if there are relationships where we need help making peace and we support each other if we need help.

We come as best we can without personal agendas in a posture of listening to the Holy Spirit, one another, and our neighbours. Discerning together what we are hearing through the practice of listening is our primary way of making decisions in Common Life and for how we make decisions in our own lives.  Listening is also how we learn to hear each other’s stories and the stories of God and our neighbours.  Therefore, we will learn to listen well and tell our stories well, so that we can be known and we can know others. When we listen to the stories of others, we operate out of a place of grace and mercy and never out of judgment while at the same time being teachable ourselves, open to listening to words of concern from others, and willing to ask for help when we need it.  Finally, we embrace the posture of listening as a formational practice that teaches us to be patient with the often slow process of practicing faithful presence in place.

We practice sacrificial generosity with our time, strengths, gifts, money, and resources, and gather neighbourhood resources and partnerships to meet the needs of others. We use our common tithe to bless others in our neighbourhood whenever needed and we will use our own finances and resources to bless members of Common Life. When it comes to blessing others in our neighbourhood, we will look for opportunities to invite others in our neighbourhood to join with us or we will join what they are already doing whenever possible.  Finally, we approach others with a “one hand full, one hand empty” attitude that acknowledges that while we have something to offer as a blessing, we are also in need of the blessing of our neighbours in what they have to offer us.