Values + Practices

Values

 Soul Survivor’s key priority is relationship.  Relationship with God, one another and the world God loves.

• We value an intimate relationship with God – Jesus Christ is the Lord, we are his servants; he is the Bridegroom, we are his bride; God is our Father, we are his children.
  
• We express this through specific acts of worship and devotion (particularly through music and song) combined with a lifestyle of worship that reflects intimacy and relationship with God, righteousness and justice.
  
• We recognise and value the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
  

2. Relationship with one another                      

• We place a high value on community and family.
  
• Whilst we look for excellence in our music and teaching we will sacrifice professionalism in favour of being relational.
  
• We value informality and fun.  We take God seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
  
• We want our meetings and events to be accessible to everyone.

• We aim to make the message of God’s love relevant and accessible to everyone.
  
• We want to engage with the world around us and not escape it through creating a Christian sub-culture.
  
• We believe that worship, evangelism and justice go hand in hand and we recognise that we – through our words and actions – can be a living representation of God in our world.
  
• We express that relationship particularly in following the biblical commands to care for the poor, the broken, the marginalized and the dispossessed and to stand for justice as an expression of the Kingdom of God.

Practices

The doctrine we subscribe to and the values we hold shape our practices:

1. Relationship with God

• Because we value intimate relationship with God our life of worship is to Him, for Him and about Him.  (We generally don’t sing songs for each other or about each other but keep the focus on Him).
  
• We will look for ways to share the good news of Jesus and bring people into relationship with Him.
  
• In our meetings we stay away from hype, performance or manipulation as much as we are able (and we recognise the outworking of some of these will vary according to culture).
  
• Because we value relationship with Him so much, our aim is to hear his voice and seek his direction in our meetings, in our leadership and in our lives.  We are open to Him changing any plans we make and, whilst we believe the Holy Spirit can and does inspire our planning, we purposely seek to leave space in our meetings for Him to speak and guide spontaneously.
  
• We always allow time in our meetings to minister to one another in the power of the Holy Spirit*. We believe that as we spend time in His presence we will change and come to wholeness – this involves character development, emotional and physical healing.
  

2. Relationship with one another

• We believe that God speaks to and through everyone and not just the ‘anointed leader’ and we all have a part to play.
  
• We always try and use language that is inclusive rather than exclusive.
  
• We want our events to be a journey that we are all on together.
  
• At our events we seek to find ways to build relationship with God and one another (e.g. co-operative projects, combined-church meetings, cafes, venues) 
  
• We are careful not to abuse our position of influence by using our events as marketing tools – either for our own ministry, or the ministry of others.
  
• Whilst we aim to value people above their skills or particular roles we have a policy to find the best fit for individual workers and their skill set.
  
• Because we value each individual we want to do all we can to ensure that Soul Survivor events, gatherings and personnel are ‘safe’ – we believe that the safety and welfare of our delegates is paramount and will take all necessary steps to do this, even if the law of our land does not specifically request us to.

• We believe that the Bible clearly teaches that justice, caring for the poor and the marginalized is part of evangelism and part of our worship.  Therefore we place a strong emphasis in our teaching on taking what we receive from God out into the world and look to equip young people with the tools to do this.
• We want to find ways to help the young people we work with connect with and get involved in issues of justice, to connect with the poor and the marginalized.