These guiding principles shape the Trust's work

  1. The relationships between church, society and ministry are constantly changing. The Trust works with diverse groups of people within and across parish and congregational boundaries, and helps churches develop their own resources.
  2. Faith can grow where people from a variety of backgrounds meet and learn together. Differences of theology, liturgy and styles of prayer can stimulate learning to live in friendship with God and each other.
  3. Faith can grow where people meet in groups small enough to get to know each other well. Small groups can provide an experience of community that forms, heals and sustains Christian learning and living.
  4. Faith can grow where people imitate and share in God's own life in a network of relationships springing from love.
  5. Faith can grow where all aspects of everyday life find their source and sustenance in God's grace. Christian faith incorporates bodies, minds, hearts and possessions into one holistic life of worship in Jesus Christ.
  6. Faith often flourishes best where people work together 'life on life' and lead by example. Faithful lives are caught as well as taught, and this can happen where a few lives engage each other in depth.
  7. Faith can grow where people acknowledge their vulnerability and discover that God works with it. Christian understandings of sin and redemption mean we are called both to critique culture and discern and share in God's creative Spirit within it.
  8. The Trust seeks to develop cooperative and collaborative ventures between different groups, drawing together Christians who might otherwise find themselves isolated.
  9. The Trust is thoroughly committed to being ecumenical in its outlook'.
  10. The Trust's work seeks to imitate God's network of relations, both between Father, Son and Spirit and between God and creatures. The Trust's projects matter because of the people involved in them, and not the other way round.
  11. Small group work is at the heart of the Trust's work. This is designed to provide an encouraging and supportive environment for asking questions, exploring issues and examining everyday habits. Discussion is led without being prescriptive, in an atmosphere of commitment to one another and care for each person.
  12. Prayer, study, reflection, spiritual direction and supervision of the Trust's employees provide the rich soil in which the Trust's work can grow and reproduce.
  13. These guiding principles are a work in progress!