Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?
Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the onPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.
From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.
If you’ve been looking for a new kind of devotion, or needing to get restarted in spiritual reflection, you’ll enjoy these short and encouraging meditations on being in the Holy Land, standing and walking where Jesus lived, and how that shapes our lives today, here.
You can subscribe to these devotions and receive them as an email by going to to timhallman.org and enter your email address into the subscribe box.
At timhallman.org you can also find a link to access the devotions through YouVersion or a downloadable PDF booklet; it was originally published on Pentecost Sunday 2021.
Download the YouVersion app and search for Living Stones devotional or click here if you already use it
The YMCA devotion series is inspired by the writings of Saint Peter, and his urging Christians to imitate Christ as we are built up into a holy and sacrificial calling to love, care and serve those God puts in our life where you lead at work, home and in the community.
“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like Living Stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
One of the long-standing gifts of the YMCA in a community is bringing people of different religions and faith traditions together – in the gym, in the sauna, in the locker room, in the board room, in the playground, in the hallways.
Let’s keep embracing this opportunity, this responsibility, this calling to strengthen our religiously diverse association, to be the welcoming heart and hands of Christ in this global community.
I applaud the efforts of Christians in the YMCA to study and collaborate and suggest ways we could deepen our interfaith work and enrich our religious inclusivity.
It is necessary and crucial to us living out our Christian principles, it’s a way to stay faithful to the Paris Basis, our Mission, and our Constitutional Purpose.
Here is a helpful document that YUSA published in 2017 regarding an overview of diverse faiths of members and ideas on inclusive practices:
But: it assumes that someone else is nurturing an inclusive Christian personality and an inclusive Christian society that is ready to do interfaith work in a welcoming, gracious, in imitation of Jesus.
As a Christian Emphasis Director, it seems to me that an obstacle to more Christians participating in interfaith dialogue and events is their neglect of interdenominational and interconfessional participation.
If we are disregarding religious folks that believe some key things different than us, but still regard Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, then it will be very difficult to take seriously the need to be understanding and empathetic to neighbors of other religions.
What can the YMCA do to encourage, nurture, even challenge its Christian members to embody the prayer of Jesus in John 17?
More Christians writing and working out practical ways we can embody The Beatitudes of Jesus, The Golden Rule, The Great Commandment, The Great Commission, with inclusive, gracious, hospitality will be helpful.
Jesus makes it clear in the Gospel According to Matthew that loving people that are like you, who can pay you back generously, is good – but doesn’t go far enough if you are going to love like God loves you; we must love our neighbors who won’t or can’t pay us back, we must love strangers, even our enemies – that is what God-like compassion, mercy and kindness looks like.
One of the long-standing gifts of the YMCA in a community is bringing people of different religions and faith traditions together – in the gym, in the sauna, in the locker room, in the board room, in the playground, in the hallways.
Let’s keep embracing this opportunity, this responsibility, this calling to strengthen our religiously diverse association, to be the welcoming heart and hands of Christ in this global community.
Do you know what is the purpose of the YMCA?
“The Young Men’s Christian Association we regard as being in its essential genius a worldwide fellowship united by a common loyalty to Jesus Christ for the purpose of developing Christian personality and building a Christian society.”
Learn more about the origins of this statement in the Y Constitution, and its stated goals!
Christians in the Y have debated issues of religious diversity and inclusion from Day One 1844, their genius compromise was the famous Paris Basis in 1855.
The American Y’s in 1869 adapted the Paris Basis, a document they struggled with in regard to its inclusive spirit, and established an Evangelical Christian Test for young men’s membership, it became known as the Portland Basis.
A crucial decision was made, due to lived experience of serving members from a diverse Christian heritage; in 1931 at the YMCA Cleveland Conference they abolished the Portland Basis and crafted this statement which is in our YUSA Constitution:
The Young Men’s Christian Association we regard as being in its essential genius a worldwide fellowship united by a common loyalty to Jesus Christ for the purpose of developing Christian personality and building a Christian society.
The Constitution goes on to include these statements:
PREAMBLE:
We, the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States of America, with the desire of conserving all the values of our past and likewise of unifying and strengthening our work to meet the challenge of our time, hereby establish the following goals for our members and their constituents, and adopt this revised Constitution of the National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States of America.
To develop self-confidence and self-respect and an appreciation of their own worth as individuals.
To develop a faith for daily living based upon the teachings of Jesus Christ, that they may thereby be helped in achieving their highest potential as children of God.
To grow as responsible members of their families and citizens of their communities.
To appreciate that health of mind and body is a sacred gift and that physical fitness and mental well-being are conditions to be achieved and maintained.
To recognize the worth of all persons and to work for interracial and intergroup understanding.
To develop a sense of world-mindedness and to work for worldwide understanding.
To develop their capacities for leadership and use them responsibly in their own groups and in community life.
To appreciate the beauty, diversity, and interdependence of all forms of life and all resources which God has provided in this world, and to develop an ethical basis for guiding the relationships of mankind with the rest of God’s natural community.
These are powerful statements crafted to embody our values: responsibility to and honesty about our past and present, caring respect for all who are currently members – in ways inspired and instructed by Jesus Christ.
A regular and purposeful review of our YMCA Constitution, it’s purpose and goals, will go a long way in nourishing our roots in our history of extending Christ’s kingdom for all humanity, participating in the struggle and striving to fulfill Jesus’ prayer, “that all may be one.”
