UNOH’s Common practices

How do we live and serve Christ together?

UNOH’s priorities

To multiply healthy, neighbourhood-based mission teams

Jesus sent out the disciples in twos. This is the model for UNOH workers to be a community to reach a community. UNOH workers serve in neighbourhood teams to:

  • Identify and join where Jesus is at work
  • Intensify and resist where Jesus is being resisted.

To join the Risen Christ in being an attentive presence in urban neighbourhoods facing poverty – being a neighbour who builds healthy relationships in sharing life

The Living Christ is most often introduced by people who are known and trusted. If a real connection to Jesus is to happen, our UNOH workers require a positive presence in a neighbourhood that models and builds positive relationships. This, at its most basic, is a grace to love God and neighbour in an urban neighbourhood.

To form neighbourhood-based partnerships that respond strategically and prophetically to urban poverty

We need to find concrete ways to help release an urban neighbourhood from specific forms of poverty. Since there are often so many needs, we have used Luke 4:18-19 as a basic guide to invite and join partnerships that respond to poverty:

  • Gospel sharing (‘good news to the poor’)
  • Consequences of poverty (‘release to the captives’)
  • Disability and illness (‘recovery of sight to the blind’)
  • Causes of poverty (‘liberation to those who are oppressed’)
  • Celebration and Reconciliation (‘proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour’)

These partnerships are pleasing to God in their own right and are not simply inducements to become Christians. The cost of our friendships and partnerships are not people’s souls. Even at an early stage however, there is a need to help make connections for Christ. The community needs to know that Jesus is ‘for’ them, and against anything that is causing them harm.

To invite radical Christian discipleship that goes deep down to ‘the roots of life’.

To help a neighbour personally and communally hear Jesus’ invitation to “Come, follow me” is one of the greatest graces we can experience. Helping Jesus and his invitation to discipleship to be recognised in the life of a host neighbourhood often requires:

  • Transformation of attitudes toward Christ – There will often be negative stereotypes of what Christ and Christians are about. These need to be broken down and Christ seen to be with them in their daily life.
  • Transformation of knowledge about Christ – There may also be mis-information about or ignorance of who Christ is. The community’s frame of reference needs to connect with the Living Christ through Scripture.
  • Transformation of experiences of Christ – Answered prayers and other supernatural experiences of Christ can have an impact.
  • Jesus is a living person so a personal and, if possible, a communal encounter with him is crucial if discipleship is to occur. The support of this call and journey is of eternal importance.

To develop Christian worshipping communities ‘of’ a neighbourhood

We all need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Thus there is the need for neighbourhood discipleship movements to belong to a larger, worshiping movement that can help provide specific Christian identity and belonging. Thus life-markers such as initiations (baptism), weddings, funerals, and coming together for inspired community worship helps resource the neighbourhood discipleship movement and partnerships.

Jesus will only be truly accessible to a host neighbourhood when the key leaders and proponents of new Jesus movements are their ‘own’. Only when Jesus is considered ‘one of us’ by a neighbourhood can the neighbourhood authentically encounter Christ and be considered ‘reached’. Without cultural barriers the community can then choose to reject or accept Christ’s call on their people, groups and systems. This is our understanding of the Kingdom coming – when people, groups and systems live like Jesus. This has already started and will be completed on the ‘final day of justice’.

To advocate with the broader Church to take the poor as seriously as Jesus does

As partnerships, discipleship and worship movements emerge, UNOH workers need to help to build bridges to other communities and systems. We don’t want to help create Christian ghettos, but see God’s kingdom come. Space then needs to be made for these movements so that God can be heard through them and be recognised and supported by the broader body of Christ. UNOH workers have a unique role to play in creating awareness at the centre of what is happening at the edges.

To give opportunity for these longings and graces for apostolic service to occur we commit to:

  • Seeking our neighbourhoods to become like villages centred on Christ by being a presence, and building relationships with neighbours
  • Initiating and joining partnerships in response to poverty; inviting and supporting neighbours to become disciples of Jesus
  • Inviting and supporting broader worshiping movements of Jesus that our neighbours can belong to
  • Offering prayer and other practical responses to those we see who are in need.

UNOH’s Rhythm of Life

UNOH’s rhythm of life aims to help us as a community to live sustainable, radical and focused lives. By marking out common times together, we can make space for that which really matters to us. Living in the midst of poverty is demanding. We can be tossed around from crisis to crisis, demand to demand, without making any lasting impact. This is especially true for our spiritual development, which can quickly be overwhelmed. We can easily become secular workers if we do not keep giving sacred space to stop and be attentive to Jesus together and individually.

While each UNOH chapter will decide on the best way to express the particulars of the rhythm of life, the following elements are involved:

Weekly Sabbath

We observe a Sabbath day each week for rest, prayer, recreation and reflection. The reasons for the first Sabbath was to show that the Hebrews were no longer slaves to Egyptians, having to work seven days a week. We therefore encourage each UNOH worker to leave their neighbourhood for some time from Sunday evening to Monday evening so that we too know we are not slaves, addicted, worn down or driven by our work. We can trust God to work beyond and without us during this time, and he knows we are human beings that need to keep re-sharpening our lives.

Daily celebration of the Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper is celebrated together Tuesday to Fridays mornings. We start the working days together focusing on the mystery of God giving his son and inviting us to participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus today. Such a start helps give us perspective, inspiration and strength to face all we need for that day. As appropriate we can invite neighbours, volunteers and other friends to join us in this time.

Neighbourhood transformation

At least one-third of each of our working days is devoted to neighbourhood transformation. We split the days into three parts (breakfast to lunch; lunch to dinner; dinner to bed) and encourage UNOH workers to mark out a ‘sacred third’ for each day at the start of the week so that it is not lost to the busyness and demands of our broader partnership ministries. We define a neighbourhood as the area we live in and can walk easily around to homes and meetings. We seek each of these neighbourhood areas where a UNOH team lives to become like a village centred on Christ. This ‘neighbourhood time’ includes:

  • Being a presence in the neighbourhood by building relationships and a neighbourhood identity
  • Developing partnerships responding to poverty that neighbours are facing
  • Discipling and worshiping with neighbours.

Partnership ministry

Our broader partnership ministry is done for no more than two-thirds of any one working day. We encourage each UNOH worker to find broader partnership ministries that they can:

  • Develop like their ‘craft’
  • Contribute toward UNOH’s overall vision
  • Be passionate about; be good at
  • Enjoy and find life in
  • Do on most working days.

This focus on a ‘craft’ helps us make our unique contributions and enables us to get through the more mundane aspects of our work that must be done.

Broader partnership ministry time therefore includes:

  • team development
  • meetings
  • leadership development
  • broader partnerships responding to poverty beyond our immediate neighbourhood
  • outside work
  • speaking, writing and song-writing
  • political activities
  • newsletters
  • support-raising work with supporters and churches
  • study and skills training.

Often neighbours will identify this aspect of our lives as our ‘work’ as Christian community workers with UNOH.

Weekends

We keep our weekends available for our neighbours first, but are open to all kinds of activities and experiences, including more partnership and neighbourhood ministries. Many of us have community worship gatherings on Sunday morning and/or evening. Some neighbourhoods have regular communion services on Saturday mornings.

Retreats

UNOH workers have three retreats annually. The beginning and end of the year retreats are organised at a chapter level; they are for inspiration, planning and evaluation. The middle of the year ‘Conference-time’ is a gathering based in Melbourne that includes all UNOH chapters. It aims to help provide the glue for our order, including building relationships, gathering insights and responding to challenges as an order. The ‘Conference-time’ includes retreats with team, board of reference, and a broader ‘awareness-raising event’. Part of each conference reviews this rhythm to ensure it is helping us live sustainable, focused and radical lives together.

Sabbaticals

UNOH workers take sabbaticals after:

  • the first three years of formation
  • the first four years of UNOH membership
  • after every seven years of service.

These range in time from six weeks (for those finishing formation) to three months (for UNOH members) and aim to be a refreshing and refocusing time for the worker. Each worker uses this time differently, but needs prayer and negotiation about times with other UNOH workers affected. The key is for the worker to determine what will be the most helpful use of this time for their long term vocational development and next stage as a Christian worker among the poor? Married UNOH workers who joined UNOH at different times take their sabbatical in the middle of when it would be due for both workers.

Exceptional circumstances

Circumstances happen which require us to alter our rhythm of life. These can include community events, retreats, meetings, speaking/fund-raising tours, outside work or study requirements, family crises, dating, life seasons. The important thing is to negotiate any changes and work out appropriate alternatives with those most affected by our absence, including team and chapter leaders. These alternatives should only be for a limited time.

If an exceptional circumstance has arisen that makes the rhythm of life unable to be maintained for more than two weeks, we encourage the worker to go on ‘special leave’ or take part of their 4-weeks annual holidays or, if it id due, sabbatical.