Accessibility
From the beginning we have believed that the Village should be a place where anyone can come and be accepted. We have fought hard against our own prejudices and lies so that we can be doorways into the kingdom of God. We resist our exclusionary ways in order to allow people to find God at their own pace and in their own way. We seek to understand the perspective of others and to love them as they are. We find that Jesus was willing to be associated with those whom society thought were outcasts and we seek to emulate Jesus as we engage the people he places in our path. We hope to place no stumbling block between Jesus and the people we meet except for the gospel itself.
Authenticity
We believe that walking the narrow way Jesus calls us to is difficult, and we attempt to be honest about the struggle. We want our community to be unafraid to confess sin and failure, and we want to be sure that people count the cost as they begin their walk with Jesus. We weep with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. We do not sugarcoat the journey and we spend a good deal of our time dealing with our own sin as well as the sin of those we have come to love as sisters and brothers. We strive to display not only the good hearts God has placed in us but also the residue of the old man that we still drag around.
Community
Foremost among our values is that we are called to be the body of Christ and to live in community with each other. We recognize that being together is hard and that it takes work and sacrifice to be able to truly love and to serve each other. We often throw parties and share meals in our homes as a way to offer the gifts of love and hospitality to others. Messages are preached in such a way that the community normally has opportunity to also speak into the passage. Various events such as a writer's group, Bible studies, philosophy discussions, and parties are held in order to have places to connect our community with the broader community of Tucson. We teach and are taught to submit ourselves to the community and to listen for the truth that the community speaks into our lives.
We strive to be a community known by its
love.
Creativity
At the Village we believe that people are made in the image of a creative God and that because this is true, we also create. Calling people to be creative in the way God has uniquely fashioned them is a huge part of our being in community. We call on people to attempt to draw, paint, photograph, sculpt, write poetry and computer programs, create music, write lyrics, cook, bake, garden, renovate buildings, and engage in other creative endeavors and then share the products of that creativity with the community. We choose to use worship songs that are created in our own community or in other nearby communities where we find relationships. We display the creativity of our community as part of our offering to God.We sponsor art shows, music concerts, and places to proffer the things we have baked or cooked to the Village community and to the broader community. We have also made the website a place to display the creativity of our community.
The Disciplines
We believe that the path to freedom, healing, and joy is found in the disciplines of prayer, reading God's Word, meditating, fasting, and self-denial, as well as in other disciplines. We have invited people into times of solitude and reflection and try to keep the practice of the disciplines part of our own routines. The elders regularly pray over and anoint people with oil for the purpose of bringing healing and hope. We have invited people into our homes for a season in order to help them grow more disciplined lives in the area of resisting addictive behaviors or handling their financial affairs. Annually we covenant together to allow ourselves to be disciplined by those God has placed in spiritual authority over us.
Truth
We believe in truth. We also believe that the evil one distorts the truth and invites us to believe lies. We make it our passion to speak the truth in love to each other, that is, to speak the truth to each other as we grieve the losses and the struggles of being called to deal with lies we have chosen to believe. We believe the Bible is true and that it is a primary place where God speaks truth to us. We also believe that God speaks truth to us in our community and through the still, small voice of his Spirit. We try to speak truth to the cultural lies of the Tucson community as well as offering the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus to those who need desperately to hear the simple, painful beauty of truth. We attempt to speak the truth without harsh judgement and condemnation, but with the gentle love of Jesus and a deep awareness of our own willingness to hang on to lies.
