Our life is open to men from a wide variety of Christian churches. Christian unity grows when life and mission are shared in a daily way. Christians from different traditions can serve together without doctrinal conflict in many ways such as caring for of the sick, reaching out to the poor, or spreading the gospel on college campuses. Such cooperative ecumenism is a powerful witness to Christ in the world. We have intentionally structured our life to bear witness to this unity, while supporting and safeguarding the church commitments of each of our brothers.
We believe that God has called us together from many Christian traditions and churches to be a living testimony of God’s purpose for his people. We believe he is “uniting all things in heaven and on earth” in his son (Ephesians 1:10). We live as brothers united in a common commitment and a common way of life which allows us to support one another in living a zealous and disciplined life in Christ. At the same time we respect those differences among us reflected by our various church backgrounds and Christian commitments.
We believe that we can discern a great and important working of the Holy Spirit to draw together people from various Christian traditions. This recognition can form a solid foundation from which to deal with many important questions that still divide Christians. We believe that our life as an ecumenical brotherhood is in part a response to that working of the Holy Spirit. We desire to play a role that supports and encourages responsible and mature ecumenical cooperation.
All the North American brothers at the 2011 Easter Celebration.
We believe that the Lord desires to overcome the divisions among Christians (John 17:22-23), and that many of the Christian churches are eagerly seeking unity with one another. We therefore join ourselves to one another as brothers as a response to God’s work among us. We believe that it furthers the Lord’s work of unity and contributes to the life of the various churches and Christians as a whole. We do so humbly, recognizing that our efforts are only a small part of what God is doing in the world today. We acknowledge that such a calling is a great challenge, and in responding to it we must rely upon the grace of God and the help of others.