Imagine a community of hospitality, where people from all walks of life find belonging, where strangers and outsiders are welcomed, where addicts and alcoholics find friendship, where broken families can flourish, where the rejected find acceptance.
Stretch your imagination to visualise a community centred on Jesus, finding the power to love people into wholeness, the creativity to teach a radical, generous lifestyle and the perseverance to endure through disappointment, grief or loss. Challenge your credulity to believe that where a community is centred on Jesus, the freedom of forgiveness is found and the process of cleansing and healing continues through a lifelong journey of learning.
Now imagine a network of small communities, each centred on Jesus, each embracing these values, each engaging with distinct groups of people as they walk alongside friends, colleagues and those to whom they are drawn. The organic character of this network is such that good health produces growth and multiplication. As each member of the community grows in character, so she/he is empowered to exercise responsibility and take initiative.
Passion for justice, random acts of kindness and humble character become evident, as the community exercises faith in God’s capacity to renew the mind and re-form the personality from the inside. In the process, people discover a hunger for learning the ways of God. They develop spiritual gifts and find the faith to release the inspired, godly dreams lying captive in their hearts. They carry their hope and new found freedom into their homes & families, their workplaces and leisure activities.
Finally, imagine a community journeying through the pains and struggles of life, strengthened by its sports and fun, by its children’s playfulness and, most of all, by its times of joyful celebration, where heaven is glimpsed, laughter and singing are heard, feasts are enjoyed and the favour of God is known. Once, Jesus gathered a community like this. Will He not do so once again?
For faith in Jesus believes in the empowering presence of his Spirit, the transformative energy of his Word, the nourishing grace of his Sacraments. Resourced and nourished by Spirit, Word and Sacrament, a people centred on Jesus has the grace to build a community of hospitality and love.
DNA Networks’ purpose is to Make Disciples who Make Disciples who Plant Churches which Plant Churches. This is an organic process that happens naturally as long as we seek to be like Jesus. DNA contains the genetic fingerprints of life; the intention of DNA Networks is to embody and multiply the Fingerprints of Jesus all over the place. How? By creating ‘Open Community Centred on Jesus’ (not ‘closed cliques centred on us!’) The Fingerprints of Jesus reflect the identity and purpose of Jesus – who he is and what he came to do.