Of all our core values, this one most affects our culture.

When we talk about culture we talk about the way a particular group of people behave and think. So you’ll notice that people behave differently at school to what they do in church. That’s because the two have different cultures.

We want our culture to say ‘we are family!’. We want our culture to be the culture Jesus talked about in the Bible. We want people to notice that when they come to Ignite, the culture is different to what they are used to. We want people to see that our culture is nicer than the one they’re used to the immediately. That way, they’re going to see “wait, this Jesus might have been on to something”.

We are there for one another

Typically, the culture that most of us are used to is one where people are focused on themselves. We’re not saying everyone outside of Ignite is selfish. They’re a plenty of selfless people. But if you were to look at the average way most people live their lives it’s mostly focused on themselves. We all do it.

We focus on how we feel, on what we want. Then occasionally we might think about how others feel and what they want.

Here at Ignite we here for one another. We want to help protect one another. If someone is struggling with a situation we want to help them and support. We care about how others feel and what others want. We want you to feel comfortable enough to share when you’re struggling, and also for you to want to help others when they struggle.

We don’t shoot our wounded

We’re all broken people. All of us. All of us make mistakes and go through struggles. More often than not, when we go through struggles we make poor choices.

Unfortunately, when we see people make poor choices we too often judge them rather than realise they’re struggling and might need help and support. This is called shooting your wounded. That person was already wounded and struggling and now you’re making it worse for them.

Here at Ignite we don’t shoot our wounded. When people make poor choices we don’t judge them, we don’t gossip or complain about them. Instead, we continue to love them and support them. Most people are used to a culture where they are punished when they make a mistake. We want to make a culture where we love people who make a mistake.

We build one another up, not tear one another down

Because we’re a family that means sometimes we get on one another’s nerves. Maybe someone did something to annoy us, or we think someone might be a little bit quirky. Normally, in those situations, we ‘vent’ our feelings to people. “That person really frustrates me,” we say, feeling like we’re getting it off our chest.

Instead, what we’re doing is tearing people down. If we complain about person A to person B, all it is going to do is make person B think less of person A. (Read that one a couple of times to make sure you understood it). When we say mean things about someone we are tearing down how people think about that person.

Say someone new walked into Ignite and heard a couple of people complaining about another person in the group. They would think “this place is no different to anywhere else, this Jesus guy isn’t special”. We want people to know that Jesus is not only special He’s the most important guy on the planet.

At Ignite, we don’t tear one another down. Ever! We build one another up. We say nice things about one another, even when they annoy us. Is it easy? No! But we do hard things.