| | | | | | | | |

Living Interfaith Church

The Foundations of Our Church

Mission and Vision Statements

Mission Statement

The purpose of the Living Interfaith Church is to provide a welcoming, respectful and nurturing religious community for people of goodwill from all spiritual paths. We share who we are and celebrate our diversity, not to convert or convince, but in realization of our common humanity. We aspire to offer a model an inclusive community that acts as an agent of good works in the local community and the world.

Vision Statement

We envision our mission unfolding in such a way that we honor and welcome people from all spiritual paths, and covenant to encourage and empower each other as we root ourselves in social justice, in our own community and the world. We will establish a model for Interfaith education which truly respects the diversity that is humanity, and provide an example that other Interfaith congregations might follow without attachment to dogma – always keeping in mind that we are all worthy of respect, and our spiritual diversity is a cause for celebration.

Specifically:

Welcoming All Paths

Our mission is to provide a welcoming, respectful and nurturing home for people of goodwill from all spiritual paths. We seek to do so by creating

1. Interfaith services that explore some of the ways our differing spiritual paths approach a question, and
2. Services that celebrate with integrity holy days from our differing spiritual paths, with the intent to share who we are, not to convert or convince.

We seek to do so by recognizing that it is not so much the beliefs we hold (which are deeply personal and to be respected) but how we act on those beliefs that is crucial – and that we are called by our common humanity to act with love, compassion and respect in the world, always remembering that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

Social Justice

Because we are brothers and sisters, an integral part of our vision is to act as a community to affirmatively address issues of social justice both at home and in the larger world. We also recognize and welcome the need to nurture and support each other as we act individually in the world as well. We understand and embrace that we are all unique, with different needs and skills, and therefore we will be called to engage the world differently. We keep centered in ourselves as individuals and as a group that while we may indeed strive for great things, it is not the perceived magnitude of our accomplishments that defines us, but rather our commitment to community – to our own community, all of humanity and the natural world.

Interfaith Education

We seek to establish and employ a curriculum of Interfaith education that teaches to our children:

1. We are all beloved and deserving of love, and there is no one “right” path to this love;
2. We have differing spiritual roots and personal paths that need to be recognized, remembered and respected:
3. However beautiful and important our personal paths may be, it is crucial that we act in the world to promote our common humanity, to serve each other and with each other regardless of societal delineations based on gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, religion, or economic circumstance – that no one is born into this world deserving of more or less love or respect than any other.

Interfaith Community

We seek to provide an example for other Interfaith congregations, not by expecting our answer to specific question to be everyone else’s, but by encouraging and promoting a multitude of Living Interfaith congregations, based on compassion, love and respect for all of humanity. Each congregation will be a welcoming home for all spiritual paths, so we may learn from each other, and celebrate with each other our differences as well as our similarities, with dignity and respect. We hope to be a template for how we can engage our own spiritual nature, not by finding one “right path” to it, but by truly learning to get to know each other [and at last both find and realize what all of our spiritual paths have taught us: we share a common humanity].

A Covenant and Six Fundamental Assumptions

We covenant to respect, nurture and support all within this our Interfaith community, founded upon compassionate action in the world. We base our covenant upon the following assumptions:

1) There is a spiritual core to the universe that calls us to our better selves if we will listen. Some may have a belief that this spiritual core is God and may have a clear belief as to who or what God is. Others may believe in a God who is less clearly defined. Still others may view this spiritual core in terms of a life-force or moral imperative, with no thought of God at all.

2) While each of us must define the meaning of our own lives, we understand, accept and embrace as self-evident that we are our brother's and sister's keeper, that we must strive daily to treat each other with honor, with respect and with love, and we recognize that this is what Jesus, Confucius, Hillel, the Buddha, Muhammad and so many others sought to teach us.

3) A part of that fundamental respect is to honor the multitude of spiritual paths that our fellow men and women have traveled and will travel.

4) We are defined by how we act and whom we help. We are called to act with compassion, love and respect not only within our community but within the entirety of the human community.

5) Economic, racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual orientation and all such divisions have no spiritual relevance, and any hierarchy based on them is both baseless and harmful.

6) The earth is our home, regardless of its creation history, and we are called upon to act as stewards and guardians of its wonders and diversity so that all generations may experience its profound beauty and richness to the fullest.

Our Joint Declaration

We come together in peace.

We sing together in joy and with love.

We worship together

In one house,

A house with names beyond number.

Our paths are many.

Our beliefs are as leaves.

And the tree that we cleave to

Is nourished by the light of

Compassion, justice and mutual respect.

May our lives, our beliefs and our actions

Help to bring about the world of love we all seek;

And let it begin here.