Love One-another

We are learning to love and accept ourselves just as God does.  It is from that place of wholeness that our meetings stay focused on Him rather than ourselves.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

Being Real

1. Spirit/Soul/Body Unity – We are free to be ourselves and express ourselves together, growing together by allowing His:  Spiritual Gifts to flow in, around, and through us; His character gifts to be evidenced in our soul unto love for one another, towards receiving His healing from His broken Body on earth as it is in Heaven.  We are His broken Body on earth – the broken vessels He still uses to pour out His love and healing one-to-another.
2. Check me out – We are free to be ourselves and express ourselves together, without the need to draw attention to ourselves – in an attempt to earn or gain acceptance, approval, recognition, respect, place, friendship, or love from God or others.
3. Facades – We neither employ religious theatrics for show, nor suppress our expressive impulses during times of free worship for fear of what others might think.  We do not prophesy in a different accent (like a King James Thespian accent) or act like someone else.

Conduct

We are ordinary people that make mistakes on each-other.  However, we also try not to.  Here are the basic things we try not to do in our ministry (prophecy, healing, etc.), fellowship, and relations with each other:

Freedom

1. Give advice – Solicited or unsolicited, medical or personal -especially regarding relationships (romantic, work, moving, changing churches).  We encourage one another to be guided by His Holy Spirit in them to make their own decisions.
2. Teach – By simply attending a meeting, we should not have to worry about being taught or preached at by someone we do not care to hear.  There is a forum for teaching that people choose to opt in to as both Bible teachers and learners.
3. Solicit/Promote – A healing and therapeutic environment is one where we can all relax without wondering when the next person or local leader is going to hit us up to donate or spend our time or money on their idea of what is good.  Legitimate opportunities to make time and money commitments are handled by a very clear fee-for-service model, and documented publicly online.  No one should be using their associations with or through this Apostolic ministry towards their own ends (or what they perceive to be God’s) by promoting, selling, or recommending ourselves, or outside products, ministries, or services.  If donations, contributions, help (including time or money), or aid of any kind (outside products, ministries, or services) are requested or solicited in any way at any time please email solicitation at apostolicFaithMission dot org.
4. Fake it – “Serve God” or others out of a place of feeling or spreading feelings of guilt, shame, fear; obligation, compulsion,  coercion, worry, need or anything other than His leading by His Word and His Spirit to us directly first – confirmed by prophetic utterance of others.
5. Multi-Cultural/Denominational – We do not impose our own religious culture on others by dominating or distracting a meeting, or expecting that others should believe, think, and act like we do on debatable matters.  We do not discuss internal debates which are not addressed in the curriculum – especially potentially fight-starting issues like Politics.

2 Cor 2:2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. New Living Translation

Dress

If you want to know how to dress to any of our meetings, you should :

1. Wear loose fitting (think athletic) clothes that keep you well-covered because you might end up rolling around or flopping around on the floor like a fish.  Skirts are a bad idea and V-neck blouses could go wrong as well.
2. Not dress up formally unless you already were dressed up – like coming from work. Consider not making the poor and the Holy Rollers not feel under-dressed.
3. Not dress so as to draw attention to ourselves (promoting ourselves) and away from God.

Laying Hands Hastily

1. We do not promote the immature prematurely,  flatter, or prophesy grandiosity – releasing a word before it’s due season.
2. We make sure a person understands why we are asking to hold their pinky and ring finger, or the top of their shoulder – and that they want us to – before we motion towards them them.
3. If a prayee reports physical improvement, we may remind them to gently check the limitations of their range of motion to see if it gradually expands.  We do not ask prayees to do anything that pains them, or participate with them in, or initiate any religious tradition or activity that causes or may cause pain or harm.

Accountability

Occasionally we need reminders from ourselves and others that we overstepped the terms above by which we agree to relate to each other by choosing to attend.

These opportunities invite us to review the above terms and reflect upon them as a more mature person than we were the last time we reviewed them, considering and applying our recent learnings from the Bible and life experiences.

Safety

You may initiate this process via an email to accountability at apostolic faith mission dot org.  You may choose to remain anonymous.  If you have been the victim of sexual misconduct or any other type of crime, please do not hesitate to inform your authorities.  Also later please contact us or have someone contact us (1) at misconduct at apostolic faith mission dot org and (2) by informing your local leadership – so that we can help you (if you want us to) and also determine if anyone else has been or is still in harm’s way.  We do not:

1. Leave children unsupervised, or under-supervised (with under-aged or under-qualified care-takers) even in a home.
2. Extend trust to people who are not known by ourselves and the community to be safe by being alone with them.
3. Minister or hang out one-on-one where a sexual attraction is a possibility (from either end), unless the single adult male has productive and redemptive intentions with the single adult female.