"In our faith community, which we do sometimes call church and other times just call the grace community, we affirm that we are centered in a generous and dynamic Christianity. There are three important words here: centered, generous, and dynamic. In being centered in Christianity, we are affirming that we are more concerned about where we find our center than our edges. Our permeable boundaries allow people to come in and also remind us to be continually engaged with the fullness of a world that is not primarily Christian. In all this, we are seeking to be centered in something specific, not just superficially perusing everything.
Being centered in a generous Christianity, we are committed to finding ways to love and serve the world as Jesus did. This is based on a belief that generosity will not only help the world, but it will deeply change us. Generosity is a direct challenge to the cultural forces that would isolate and make us fearful. Contemporary social/economic forces, for example, encourage us to hoard what we have or attend only to our own needs or our own family's needs. A generous Christianity is a more holistic Christianity, because it acknowledges how integrally interconnected we are with each other and with the world. We are striving to be with God and with our neighbors, as Jesus was and is with God and neighbor.
Dynamic Christianity is a spiritual way of being that is not afraid of change. In fact it affirms that Christianity has always been dynamic, that theologians have filled libraries with books recording their struggles with each other on the greatest metaphysical mysteries of all times. When we enter into this tradition of conversation, we enter in with our full voices, all our questions, and all our brilliant insights. We enter Christianity as full participants in discovering what the Spirit is speaking to us today and then articulating and enacting in the world what we hear."
--- Nanette Sawyer in the book "An Emergent Manifesto Of Hope"
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