This is a phrase which has come to symbolise a very practical outworking of loving one another as a church community. There are occasions when the church has been represented more by jealousy, competition, pretence, and independence, and that’s just among the leaders! That spirit must be challenged if we are to truly be obedient to Jesus’ great commission. Being there for one another’s success is about sacrificing your own time, finance, profile and success in order that others will benefit. It is understanding what our friends are called to by God and making their success one of our priorities.

This is particularly crucial among leaders, as they work out what God has called them to, find peers that can encourage them along the way, build teams that lead churches effectively, and raise up a new generation of leaders that can genuinely go further than the previous generation.

Church leadership has often been characterised by isolation and building one’s own kingdom, rather than this open-hearted, Christ-centred approach which will ultimately see a much greater reward for the kingdom.

As we consider the distinctive values of Regions Beyond, this one may seem to be something that we share universally with other church movements, and as such should be assumed rather than made a distinctive. In practice, we find it’s something that we need to talk about often, tell stories about, search our hearts over, review constantly and champion as something that has hardly been touched on, so that we carry this value into other streams of the worldwide church, and so that future generations will also hold it dear.