We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God", yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21 NIV).

Introduction

God has always sought a relationship with His people. The Israelites throughout the Old Testament went through phases of being in and out of relationship with God through their disobedience. For the Christian, God has again taken the initiative by sending Jesus to establish a covenant relationship with His people that sets the foundation for us to have dialogue and relationship with God.

Paul's emphasis on being 'in Christ' introduces a profoundly personal and intimate understanding of our relationship with Christ.

John writes about the relationship between the Father and the Son as similar in some way to our relationship with the Son. We can be 'in him and he in us' just as the Father is in Christ and Christ is in the Father. Our vertical relationship with Christ is then given the test by its outworking in love between people. We can not claim to love God, who we have never seen, if we do not love our brethren who we do see.

Christianity is not a system of religion, but a set of relationships, with God, with our fellow man and with the environment that we live in.

The basis of NT ethics deal with relationships, with the leaders in the church, with the brethren, with the state, between employers and employees, with worldly society, in marriage, between parents and children and with our own self image.

The following values come from this understanding -

1) Relationships in Christ develop out of our relationship with God. Our worship which is God directed should open up and make possible our love for others. True worship should always lead to fellowship, this creates a need for community which is the reason we emphasize small groups. On the other hand attempts at fellowship without first being able to worship God will result in 'social meetings' which will eventually die. With this understanding we have a healthy perspective on Christian fellowship.

2) Relational Christianity is fundamental to Vineyard. People come before 'the system'. If the structure does not serve people, then we change it.

3) We are encouraged to put others first. We are really only as complete as the least complete person within the Fellowship. If one part of the body suffers, we all suffer, the body of Christ is people, as God's people we are called to love and care for the body as if it were our own body.

4) Relational Christianity is focused on reality. Part of that means that we are to avoid religious pretense and jargon. Jesus spent a lot of time addressing the religious pretense of the Pharisees. Everything that is within us is known to God, it is therefore useless to try to pretend to Him, to ourselves or to others. We want to be exactly what we appear to be.

Priorities

1) We seek to develop a relational, rather that a liturgical style of church. Meetings are important times because of the value we place on worship and preaching of the word, but being a church means much more than attending meetings. All of the relationships mentioned above are to be fostered. The NT uses the Greek word 'koinonia', which means 'shared life or 'common life'.

2) It is a priority to love the Church as Christ loves the Church. This means that we are to love the whole Church, and resist elitist or judgmental attitudes. It also means being committed to the tangible, concrete expression of the local church.

3) Avoidance of religious pretense requires a high level of integrity, honesty and transparency. Liturgies from the middle ages, religious rites and habits, stagemanship, special clothes and titles and exaggerated advertising are all to be avoided.

4) It is important to overcome the split between spiritual and material things, between the body and the spirit, sacred and secular, church life and world life. We need to be able to mix with Christians and non-Christians.

Practices

1) We use 'disclaimer' language with spiritual gifts and revelations. (ie. avoiding such 'prophetic' jargon as 'thus saith the Lord').

2) We avoid religious titles and formal dress.

3) We spend time building relationships with each other, one to one, in small groups, praying together, eating together, playing together etc. Recreation is holy, just as worship is holy. Small groups are the building block of church life and are the basis of relationship and church growth.

4) The continuing dynamic of relationships will equip us with the skills necessary to witness, council and teach the Word. At different times we focus on these areas in more formal ways, ie seminars, sermons etc.

5) Our meetings should manifest a family atmosphere where passion for God and humour between brothers and sisters in Christ are natural occurrences.