Remember that you were at that time without Christ... and strangers to the covenants of promise... But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2: 12-14, NRSV) Picture: The Berlin Wall, late 1980's, Germany

Principles for the Project

The Project will only achieve its overall aims through the involvement of as wide as possible a range of Christian urban mission practitioners, denominations and agencies. The principle for developing and supporting networks will be inclusiveness, so that groups self-exclude rather than finding themselves unwelcome.

Helpful statements are:

Micah Declaration, 2001

This comes from the Lausanne Conference process:

"Integral mission or holistic transformation is the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel.

It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other. Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has social consequences as we call people to love and repentance in all areas of life.

And our social involvement has evangelistic consequences as we bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ.

If we ignore the world we betray the word of God which sends us out to serve the world. If we ignore the word of God we have nothing to bring to the world."

The 'Lünd principle'

A statement was made at the 1952 meeting of the World Council of Churches in Lünd, Sweden:

that 'given unity in Christ' churches should 'act together in all matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel them to act separately'.

This can be summarised as:

• We do together what is best done together but where there is a major difference we can do separately

• The first assumption is that things will be done together