THE BARNABAS MODEL

We are created by God, and we inherently have great dignity as those who bear His image.

We are created with longings to experience deep intimacy and deep impact in our relationships with one another, and in the good world God created.

We also experience deep disappointment as we encounter the reality that the world is not as it was made to be, and we are not as we were made to be. In our depravity, we often seek remedies to this disappointment with little to no awareness of our ever-present, loving God.

We develop strategies to attempt to get what we want and to avoid what we fear, but these
strategies lack love and ultimately miss the mark of satisfying the very longings we were made for. Our way of relating to others (our relational style) reflects these strategies and reveals our need to be forgiven and transformed by love.

As we become aware of who we are and who God is, we experience more acutely our need for God, whose grace is always available to us through Jesus Christ. God invites us to turn to Him with our longings and our disappointments, relinquishing our strategies. This turning is an evidence of the Holy Spirit, at work within us. We discover that we are not alone, and that God is present, dependable, and full of love for us. We are freed to enjoy our dependence on Him with a deepened sense of gratitude. We are freed to relate to others with a deepened sense of security, compassion, and love.