About SoulStream
The mission of SoulStream is to nurture contemplative experience with Christ leading to inner freedom and loving service.
Real, honest experience — all the daily stuff with its endless opportunities to open to God’s love, the beautiful surprises to savour, and all the brokenness that we share in common and that calls forth compassion.
We seek to live authentically with Jesus by encouraging one another to receive the gift of God’s intimate and loving presence in all of life.
To that end, SoulStream offers courses such as Living from the Heart, spiritual direction training courses and workshops, a committed contemplative community of partners, and other ways to nurture an awakened, receptive, trusting experience in the face of all the opposing pressures of the world we live in.
SoulStream Values
God’s Constant Initiative in Love
God is good! God is constantly coming to us in love and inviting us into loving communion with the Trinity and with all creation. Jesus is the expression of God in our experience, and our spiritual life is centered on intimacy with Jesus in all the affairs of our lives.
A Receptive Orientation
Our basic stance in life and toward God is one of receptivity rather than achievement. This is the heart of the contemplative way: receptivity to God who is always coming to us in love.
Personhood
We are one in God, although we express God uniquely through our created personality. Every person is made in the image of God and therefore carries the presence of God at the very heart of their existence. Our very identity is freely given to us by God. We are God’s dearly loved children. We do not have to achieve our identity. We simply receive it. Therefore every person has dignity and worth regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual identity or orientation, religious beliefs or any other distinction, and every person is to be treated as the bearer of God’s presence in our world.
Authenticity in Community
SoulStream places a strong emphasis on the call of God to be in community with others for the sake of remaining true to the way of Jesus and the task of working together for the healing of the world. This relationship is built on love, a growing process of being grounded in God, and a growing openness with regard to expressed emotions, thoughts, or concerns. Speaking the truth in love about God, faith, ourselves, and the wide diversity of human experiences is affirmed.
An Embodiment of Grace
Grace is the loving activity of God’s presence in our lives. We are fully embraced in grace and we are learning to live in such a way that we embody God’s loving presence at work in our world. By our lives and actions we bring life and hope and a sense of wonder and integration into all our relationships. We call people to notice the beauty of God’s work in their own lives and in the world at large.
Justice and Peace
As God’s people, we seek to embody and evoke the gift of God’s presence in all situations including right relationships (justice) and peace (shalom).
God being our helper, we will endeavour to:
- approach our divine call to care for the world positively and lightly, knowing that our response will be a natural outflow of our life in God.
- become more aware of our own complicity and our own inner landscape in terms of attraction and aversion around responding to the world’s beauty and brokenness.
- support one another in our community, as we continue to converse about our anguish and helplessness around what we see and allow God to move us into hope.
- join God in healing the world in ways that are true to our own gifts and limitations.
Hope
We trust that, despite all evidence to the contrary, God will accomplish God’s loving and redeeming purposes toward the fulfillment of all things in Christ.
The Basic Commitments Of The SoulStream Partners
Observe regular times of prayer and solitude to nurture our life in God’s love.
We covenant together to find time to pay attention to our life with God, seeking to claim our true identity as God’s beloved children and growing in the freedom God offers.
Attentively respond to the Spirit’s presence and action in our daily choices.
We covenant together to become increasingly receptive in body, mind and emotions to God’s loving action in every area of life. We will seek to let go of our lurking tendencies to self-effort and control and surrender to God’s initiative in our lives.
Help nurture healthy community within the web of relationships in which we live.
We covenant together to live together in our relationships with vulnerability and trust, embracing our weakness and the weakness of others, and trusting God’s restorative action among us.
Create a welcoming space for others without distinction.
We covenant together to offer respect and blessing to all people – regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual identity or orientation, religious beliefs or any other distinction – providing a safe place where the beauty and struggle of each person’s experience can be honoured and celebrated.
Act with compassion for justice and peace within the whole of creation.
We covenant to embody God’s presence in the world, promoting care for creation and offering compassion to all who lack power and voice in our society. We will also seek the courage to witness to and act against injustice, exclusion and exploitation.
Support the mission, activities, and community that are the life of SoulStream.
We covenant together to support the life of our dispersed community by our actions, by our prayers, and by our regular financial contributions in a manner appropriate to our personal circumstances.