Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’

One of the things that we are focussing on at the moment is the application of these verses in the lives of ourselves, those we work with and those to whom we minister.

God’s people have been joined together forever through the blood of Jesus and this should be honoured in and through our lives.

So, in the relationships between fellow workers, we are placing great emphasis on their being people of passion for what they are doing, people who walk humbly before God, and people and people who ‘play nicely’ with each other. If we want such characteristics to be true of our disciples, they also need to be true of us.

In terms of discipleship, we have put together a series of principles that inform our discipleship relationships. Among these are principles like:

1) Being a family.
2) Have conversations about key issues before they become problems.
3) Having open homes and wallets so as to meet the needs of our disciples.
4) Ministering with a purpose.
5) Ministering according to the needs of the person in front of us.
6) Praying with new believers for lost people.

Our vision is one of seeing multiplying disciples raised up and we should not shrink from this. At the same time, we need to pursue deep relationships with our disciples within which we not only know what their needs are but are able to intelligently serve them according to their needs.

We also need to be conscious that we are in  an environment where very, very few people have grown up with examples  of what it means to forgive or to be a part of a healthy Christian community. We need to model Christian community, we need to model forgiveness.