Monday

OUR VALUES - COMMUNITY - Common

Community can be broken down into two words - common and unity.

Every community is a group of people who have something in common with one another. That me be geography, colour of skin, sexuality or faith. The one thing we have in common with one another at St Andrew's is Jesus. Apart from Him we are a widely different group of people who would have little to do with one another if it wasn't for Jesus. We are a people of different backgrounds, abilities, skin colour and characters yet we are one community. When I was a Curate my old rector used to say that this was the glory of the Church, that such a wide range of people could ever come together to for a community.

Of course this kind of diversity means that there will always be some level of conflict, if there wasn't there would be something seriously wrong! We only stay a community as we recognise who it is who brings us together and recognise Jesus in each other. However, this isn't an anything goes kind of diversity! Every community has some kind of boundaries that help define it. Sometimes these boundaries are there to exclude people and there needs to be as few of them as possible in Church. There are also healthy boundaries that determine, not just who we are, but the kind of people that God calls us to be. The Scriptures define us as a church, it is these that we need to turn to in understanding the kind of people we need to be.

Peter wrote "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." 1 Peter 2:9,10

We are the "People of God" it is he who brings us together and it is he that defines who we are and what we are like and what we are to become.

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