authenticity

Westside is in a vision process. Part of it has been discovering, from scratch, what we value. Authenticity came up. Now, I have to admit, someone joked that a week doesn't go by that I don't use the term. I'm okay with that. At the very least I hope it keeps me accountable towards greater authenticity.

This value came up, not as an aspiration, but what people around the table (about 10) actually felt we value.

I through the list of values out to other key volunteers and all of them affirmed that one.

Then I had a serendipitous moment - a surprising unleashing of words in response to one of the responses I got back about authenticity. It was such a cool string of literature, I must share it immediately (I literally typed it 2 min. ago). I said...

I hope Westside always allows people to be who they are, even if they're not who they always want to be at the moment.

I just wrote that. I love that. That's authenticity (not my bragging, which I hope I'm not doing - really I'm excited about this - but that phrase, I think it reflects authenticity).

This expresses our need to keep growing (in spiritual and emotional maturity) so that people can walk in (or engage our community) as they are in the hopes of growing to become what God wants them to be.

Thanks for sharing that with me.