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Mornington Explorers

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In May 2003 Mornington Methodists were asked who would be interested in joining a group for sharing thoughts and feelings about faith and religion. Out of that came the Explorers group, which has maintained a membership of around 15.

Listening to one another we have come to appreciate our diversity. We are not required to think exactly alike or to follow just one theological line. We do not work through studies when we get together. To have faith is not to adopt a given set of propositions. Rather it is to be on a journey. None of us would wish to have remained where we were in childhood or where our Christian educators left us.

We have nevertheless tried to say something that might represent our group as a whole. We arrived at the following sentences, which certainly have only an interim character:
(A Dunedin Methodist Statement, 2004)

  1. We have found that our experience of God (wherever or however we perceive God to be) has been profoundly enhanced by Jesus of Nazareth.
     
  2. We honour the history which fed our own faith tradition, and seek to be open to wisdom and inspiration from other traditions and sources.
     
  3. We find more grace in the search for understanding than in dogmatic assertion.

  4. We offer our fellowship to all interested people, including —
    those of widely diverse approaches, whether conventional,
    conservative, radical, or sceptical;
    those of all races and cultures;
    those of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

  5. We accept that the way we live — how we treat ourselves, one another, and the natural world — is the truest expression of faith.

There are no theological assertions of a traditional sort here, though the last sentence, without specifying just what faith should say, does suggest how we might test our faith: what quality of life does it lead us to live?

 
 We list here diverse contributions, from our members and others in harmony with our approach.

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