What is Peace Church? Part 2.

At the recent Worshop national team day/Noel Moules's birthday party on Saturday 14 January, 2006, we spent an amazing hour hearing Noel's spiritual journey. During it, Noel talked about the development in his thinking of many key peace church ideas. Many of you who know me will know that my discussions with Noel were intrumental in Sarah and I kicking off a peace church community of faith in Birmingham, UK, 2 years ago. Noel and I have talked and talked at every opportunity about what it means to be an authentic follower of Jesus, and what it means to be a disciple of the Gospel of Peace. Out of those discussions has come many things, one being our faith community, another being this website.

What follows is a transcript of Noel's description of peace church from his spiritual journey on the Workshop team day.

Peace Church is a way of thinking: discovering authentic church to be rooted in the centrality of Jesus, within the vision of shalom, and experimenting with the values that flow from this source.

• A place of celebration and reflection, that is both safe and dangerous, secure and risk-taking.
• Congregations characterised by real wisdom, which encourages thinking and questioning, enabling them to engage effectively with the intellectual and moral challenges of the times, and live in a way that is both provocative and attractive.
• Energised by spontaneity and freedom, yet marked out by compassion and love for those in need.
• Fearless in challenging injustice, while gentle in all their relationships among people and within creation.
• A body of Christian disciples who have a sense of mission that sees evangelism as proclaiming the joyful good news of shalom.
• Inspired by a living hope, which looks for substantial change in the present time and has a confidence that through the power of the Spirit we are already, in this age, the first fruits of the new heaven and new earth.