The way we live in the world is often chaotic – filled with noise, busyness, and screens. We rarely find ourselves in quiet, still, restful spaces. In the Genesis origin story, creation wasn’t  finished until God created rest on the seventh day. We seek to have our community gatherings  be a place where we step out of the chaos and into the stillness so we can rest and find peace.

We read in the Bible, “Be still and know that I am God.” We see Jesus practice this wisdom throughout the gospels. The way of Jesus is rooted in being still and reflecting.

The world is not the way that it is supposed to be. God’s dream – Shalom – is for the world to be  the way it is supposed to be for all people. We cannot see God’s dream realized without  resisting the inertia of the status quo in us and in the world. Following Jesus demands that we  stand on the side of justice in all things and resist those things that prevent justice.

The prophetic work of God’s people is one in which we name the wrongs and suffering of the world, give voice to that pain, and then seek to imagine a new vision of what could be. As God’s people, we are the storytellers of the kingdom of God that is both here and that is coming. We tell the story of how God is reclaiming all things.

We have the power to create and re-create the world in which we live. We have been made in  the image of the infinitely creative God. As we create, we can more deeply find our God-given  humanity, process our daily lives, and find healing for ourselves and others. We have been  given the ability to open-handedly bring love, beauty, and wholeness into the world in the same  way that we can grasp for ourselves and introduce hate, fear, or divisiveness. We own our daily  role of thoughtfully participating in the ongoing creation and recreation of God’s world toward all  things being made new.

These values are not static points on a list but a living rhythm — a way of moving through the world again and again. Each one holds the others, each one prepares the way for what comes next.

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• We rest for peace, because without rest our striving curdles into burnout. Rest grounds us in the wholeness that precedes and sustains all action.

• We reflect for wisdom, because peace deepens into clarity when we pause long enough to listen and learn. Reflection helps us discern what is true and necessary.

• We resist for justice, because wisdom compels us to act. Resistance is not simply defiance but the insistence that another way is possible.

• We reimagine a new way, because resistance without imagination only tears down. Reimagining invites us to dream beyond what is, to envision what might be.

• We relentlessly create, because imagination becomes real only when given form. Creation brings vision to life and plants the seeds of change.​

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And so the cycle continues: creation brings us back to rest, where we are renewed, where we pause again, where wisdom has a chance to ripen. This is not a one-time journey but a continual rhythm — a spiral, not a straight line — shaping who we are and how we move together toward wholeness.