OUR PLAYGROUND MANIFESTO
Playground Mindset
Remember your favorite playground as a kid? This place of pure joy and freedom where you could be anything you wanted. This place where you finally risked jumping off the swing, made your first friend, explored your creativity. This place you had fun and could just be. Remember that?
Well, that’s exactly what our Playground mindset is about. It's a way of thinking an outlook on life, a culture that helps us defy adversity & mediocrity, embrace possibilities and have our creative mode turned on. So that together we get to dream up what our big communal Playground (a.k.a. Earth) could look like if we all woke up every day with a deep conviction of who we are and what we were created for.
Powerful Micro-Community
We were not created to be alone. Our hearts yearn for belonging and we all need a place to call home. We believe that micro-community is the component each one of us needs to grow and thrive as human beings and fellow disciples.
In some ways, it's the secret ingredient nourishing our souls and calling forth the best in us (as well as pushing on all our buttons...). And it's also the small voice spurring us to keep on fighting when everything feels hopeless. Because life does get tough at times, and we all need friends to have our back and help us up on our feet again.
Crazy, Unconditional Love
We believe our world is crying out for a deep encounter with extravagant love! And if we are to follow our Father's instructions to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love our neighbours as ourselves, love can't just be a nice, fluffy feeling that comes and goes. It has to be the rock-solid foundation, the source we draw from as we care for the people and needs around us.
Love is like a burning fire. And we believe in starting fires. Fires burning bright because of God's love. And we want this love to saturate and shape all we create and do as a community.
The Creative Spark
Creativity is no feel-good idea, only reserved for the select few. Everyone was given a good portion and we all need to figure out how we'll do the most of it. And that's why we believe creativity is the single most important aspect we need to wrap our heads around in order to engage our messy world's needs and create lasting solutions.
To stop creating means the beginning of a slow, unnoticeable death. And we don't think anyone should choose that path. That's why we aim to put creativity at the heart of all we do and see it as the fuel to constantly push us onwards and take risks with the ideas and projects we launch.
Entrepreneurial At The Core
It's easy to get overwhelmed by the massive challenges our world is facing.
But we genuinely believe those challenges can also become amazing opportunities to do things in new ways and find innovative solutions to the problems ahead of us.
Yet, doing that can often be scary, risky, and let's face it, sometimes sketchy. Which is why we all need a good dose of the entrepreneurial spirit to help us embrace the uncertainty of an ever changing world, so that we may, like a certain Abe Lincoln once said, make it a habit to start where we are, use what we have and do what we can.
Stay Curious
We are all learners. Actually, fellow learners. And no one can ever claim to have all the answers or understand everything, which should inspire all of us to stay curious. Always.
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Knowledge and wisdom are precious and our Heavenly Father tells us to search for them like prospectors panning for gold, like adventurers on a treasure hunt. And that's something we aspire to do. And also inspire others to do. Because our world is complex. And if we are to be the salty ones, we need to understand God's heart, design and intentions for His creation... and it all starts by taking the attitude of a learner.
The Least. The Last. The Lost.
Ultimately, we believe that the sum result of those key aspects we value as a community, needs to translate into tangible, relevant expressions of our care and love for the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners. Whether it's our next door neighbours or suffering communities on the other side of the globe, we believe in empowering people to go and make a difference. This is the very purpose of our Playground and the core mindset we are committed to foster in all that we are and do.