Christian Selvaratnam

I was speaking at G2 yesterday on one of our values: “Inclusive”.

As part of the talk I gave people 3 cards to arrange. The cards had the words “Believe”, “Belong” and “Behave” written on them representing 3 aspects of how people connect with and become part of a church. The task was for groups to play around with the order of the words and consider what the feel of that church might be like (nb at G2 people sit around tables which makes it easy to chat and do this kind of stuff).

While its fresh in my mind, here are some of the word orderings and what we thought.

BELIEVE

BEHAVE

BELONG

This is a traditional “believers church” value system where, in order to belong, a person needs to show evidence believing in God and evidence of a Christian lifestyle.

BELIEVE

BELONG

BEHAVE

This is similar to the one above but where belief and behaviour’s are separated. I think this reflects some organisations where I’ve been a guest speaker and had to sign a doctrinal statement of faith before they would let me preach, but where they didn’t need to know any more about me of my life style.

BEHAVE

BELIEVE

BELONG

This could be a description of the post New Testament early church. As a generalisation, for them evidences of a pure and devoted life was a pre-requisite for baptism and public confession of faith that in turn led to belonging to the church.

BELONG

BELIEVE — BEHAVE

This was one suggestion of what we thought G2 was aiming to be. Somewhere where people can belong up front, feel included and given space to explore the Christian faith and what it means for their life - where beliefs and lifestyle were closely associated and linked.