In order to "build beloved community", a congregation must determine its own mission, its own niche, within the physical geopolitical community in which it resides. The First Presbyterian Church of Levittown, NY determines its primary mission to use its physical plant as a space where outside groups may come and do their work of learning and healing. Using the ancient rules of hospitality, a congregation creates safe space by providing an example of God's love through welcome, inclusiveness, and just plain good manners. Communities often have trouble with their boundaries. It is hard for people to manage relationships, to agree to share space, to act as partners. Like dancers learning to dance with one another, often the partners step all over one another in learning the limits of space and time. Communities do not become beloved overnight. Partners face difficulties in language, in boundaries, in diversity of personality and faith, in differing visions of ministry.
In this project, the congregation tries to continue the efforts toward engaging with the groups that use its facilities, to become partners in a "dance" of shared space, shared learning and shared mission. Using the dance as a metaphor, the host congregation and the guest groups begin learning new music and hearing a common rhythm by engaging each other in conversation, learning side by side, and gathering together in mutual mission. The theological mandates to hospitality (Genesis 18, Acts 2) now lead to breaking down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14), claiming the Divine as our peace. Even though a church and the guest groups that use their created "safe space" do not claim shared traditions of worship and faith, their respect for one another and for the Divine can lead to a common dance in which both can grow and God can be glorified. And though the music and the faces of the partners may change, the habits of hospitality are sustained by continued learning and constant contact.
