Our Values
The mission of The Gathering Place Ministries is guided by three values:
Shalom
Hospitality
Diversity
At the Gathering Place we strive to be a community of shalom:
The shalom community is a place of belonging, where God’s love is shared and experienced, a place where every individual both knows and is known, it is a place of ownership, participation, and accountability. ~Rev Dr Jodi Gatlin, 2021
I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me. John 17:21–23 (CEB)
Shalom
CREATED FOR RELATIONSHIP & VOCATION
In the second chapter of Genesis the Lord God created humanity for four relationships, and then gave humanity a vocation:
Relationship:
Love God
Love Self
Love Neighbor
Care for Creation
Vocation:
Worship God
Reflect God
Expand the Garden of Shalom
We believe we can experience Shalom when we live into our full humanity by:
Nurturing the relationships we have been created for
Participating in the vocations we are called to
Shalom is the Old Testament concept of wholeness and is reflected in the garden scene of Genesis 2. It is the promise of abundant life promised by Christ, and reflected in Ephesians 2:
When he came, he announced the good news of peace to you who were far away from God and to those who were near.We both have access to the Father through Christ by the one Spirit. So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household. As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:17-22, CEB)
Hospitality
FROM HOSTILITY TO HOSPITALITY
In 1975 Henri Nouwen wrote "We can say that during the last years strangers have become more and more subject to hostility than to hospitality" in his book Reaching Out. Almost 50 years later this statement is true more than ever before.
The Gathering Place believes that in a world filled with hostility we have the opportunity to create space for Christ's hospitality
True hospitality does not require the other to become us before they are friend. True hospitality welcomes the potential of being changed by others. It allows space for everyone to be who they are, and where they are on their own journey. True hospitality requires me to listen to your story, and it requires me to share my story. ~ Rev. Dr. Jodi Gatlin, 2019
Diversity
A MULTICULTURAL CHURCH REFLECTING THE IMAGE OF A DYNAMIC GOD
Two things are true:
1) Every person born is made in the image of God;
2) No two people on Earth are the same.
Therefore, the image of God is vast and dynamic. The image of God is bigger than any one person, any one ethnic group, or any one society can encompass.
If our church is filled with people who look and think like us, we are missing the dynamic reflection of God. The truth is, if the body of Christ is going to reflect the image of God it must be filled with a diverse group of people. ~Rev. Dr. Jodi Gatlin
“Rather than uplifting one race and ethnicity as the ultimate image of God, we must establish churches that honor the breadth of God's image found in a range of cultural expressions.”
(Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Releasing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity)
