partnership covenant

I'm meeting tonight with our partnership team and just spent some time reading through the covenant that we formed together in the fall. How greatly inspired I am as I read through this covenant!

Harvest Vineyard Church and Orchard Hill Church Partnership

Mission

Called together to be a Kingdom community who will link lives and gifts to follow the Spirit of God for the glory of God and the wholistic development of people and places through the love of Jesus Christ.

Partnership Core Values

1. Spirit of God. We value listening, discerning, and obeying the Spirit of God as He moves and directs our partnership. We believe that it is only through the Spirit's leadership, grace, and power, that we will accomplish the mission God has for this partnership. We believe that the Holy Spirit reveals God's will and directs us through His Word, prayer, His people, and through circumstances.

2. Reconciliation. We believe that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, people can be reconciled to God and reconciled to one another. We value that this partnership crosses lines of denomination, gender, age, race, class, and culture and results in people who recognize one another as created in the image of God with equal value and worth in the eyes of God. We value respect for our differences and believe we can learn from them as well as celebrate our common bonds in Christ.

3. Christian Community. We value the loving relationships that develop as God binds person by person together in this partnership. We value the friendships, the gifts, the encouragement, the honesty, the reciprocity, the accountability, and the growth that is present in authentic Christian community. We believe that we must lead with these relationships and not lead with resources in this partnership.

4. Mutuality. We value interdependency in the partnership. We believe that each person and each church has gifts and resources that can be offered as well as needs to be addressed. Together we can share and help one another grow and develop in Christ. We believe that a partnership should be roughly balanced with a shared experience of giving and receiving by both partners.

5. Mission of compassion and justice. We value God's heart for his suffering people, and we believe that He calls us to hands-on compassion and sends us into the darkness to be his salt and light and healing presence. We believe we are called to cooperate with Christ to bear witness to his kingdom of righteousness and justice on the earth.

6. Wholistic development. We value addressing the needs of a whole person...spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental. We believe Christ came to redeem our whole selves. We value making disciples who know their identity and calling in Christ. We value working together to empower each individual toward their God-planned potential. We value training up and releasing leaders. We also believe that Christ came to redeem systems and places as well as individuals, so together we value partnering with Christ and one another for wholistic community transformation.

Practices

1. Practice prayer How will we pray with and for one another this year?

2. Practice planning What team will we form to plan and communicate what God is calling us to be and do? What goals will we set and what kind of evaluation will we set up?

3. Practice presence How will we be present and participate with one another this year?

4. Practice postures of serving and learning How can we serve one another and what do we need to learn from each other this year?

5. Practice play How will we play and celebrate together this year?