Our Credo
Kaben Kramer • February 15, 2019
Shoot for the moon! If you miss, you'll land among the stars.
If our Tenderly Rooted brand is us shooting for the moon, then this is our star chart. This is our far-reaching goal, our outlying aspirations, the orbit we'd love be gravitationally locked into.
Perhaps morbidly, these are the topics we'd love to hear mentioned at our funerals. And we know we can't just hope people would associate us with these ideas, we are to lean into them now and until our funerals.
Starting over a year ago, when we first penned this Credo, it became a filter, frame, and line-of-sight for assessing each and every decisions, whether big or small. Our remodel? Held to this credo. Our posts? Held to this credo. Our lifestyle, career, and parenting style? Held to this credo.
To know us, look at what we're doing through this lens.
Here is our credo as it stands today:
Aspirational behaviors
We want...
- an exodus from a life defined by provision, pride, and power; we want to move into a life defined by Presence. We seek to grow in spiritual rhythms, disciplines, and discernment so as to relish the presence of God, his presence with others (inside and outside the church), and our ability to join him and others in presence together.
- to be able to discover where God is at work and brave enough to join him there - no matter where “there” is.
- our lifestyle to be framed by restorative patterns, and away from a constrained schedule of obligations. The harried rush from one event to another is exhausting. It is killing us, it is killing our kids, it is killing our church, and it is killing society. We seek to discover ancient rhythms of sabbath, jubilee, and cities of refuge to enter more fully into life-giving patterns centered around Jesus and community.
- abundance in less; we want to flourish, not by sequestering resources but by depending on God and co-depending on our tribe.
We seek...
- to increase both in our activism and in our contemplation. We seek to engage in prophetic joy - a joy that calls into being a future reality that is only realized in Jesus. We seek also to tend to our souls in the quiet of solitude, prayer, and knowing ourselves in the presence of the Consuming Fire and Shelter from the storm.
- to rest well in the finished work of Jesus. We are not defined by the sum of our failures, nor by the sum of our successes; our worth is in Jesus. We hope to develop ease of access to rhythms of rest - silence, solitude, contemplation.
- to engage the full breadth of God-designed diversity, both inside and outside the church.
- to disciple toward Jesus in the context of ministry as a whole family - kids and all. We are first and foremost children of God, disciples in the way of Jesus. Our kids share this same primary identity. Therefore, our goal is not to control them or parent them, but to co-disciple with them toward the heart of Jesus.
We aspire toward...
- promiscuous generosity. In our opinions, attitudes, and behaviors towards others we seek to go so far beyond the status quo that heads turn and questions are asked. We want to give away more than is proper, even to the extent it may appear we are taken advantage of.
- radical hospitality. Our heart is to be hospitable to people, ideas, and customs that the church may find difficult to embrace. In our home, in others’ homes, and in public spaces we seek to be hospitable to that which is far from the Kingdom in such a way that they are a bit nearer to the Kingdom.
- We never want a “final draft” of this Credo - we seek to continue to be transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit throughout our entire lives.
And there are some beliefs that underpin some of these aspirations. Knowing them may help place us in context:
Foundational beliefs
- Sola Scriptura
- Everything we do is a result of the finished work of Jesus as revealed in the Bible. He did it then, he does it now, and he will do it forever.
- We agree with a general protestant evangelical proclamation of the tenets of faith.
- We believe Jesus is in the business of making all things new, and we want to join him in it.
On Power & Winning: - We believe that in the Kingdom, up is down.
Retributive justice
sequesters power, restorative justice releases power; mercy elevates the powerless to a place of value. We gain the whole world when we forfeit our lives.
- We believe that in the Kingdom, power is gained through self-sacrifice and not gained by violence or self-protection; love wins in death.
- We believe the Kingdom is discovered and shared, not built and controlled. Jesus is the hero of the story, and Jesus builds his church. As we discover the great treasure of the Kingdom in digging in the fields of our neighborhood, school, job, and church, we lay hold of it by laying down everything else.
Wow a crowd + your taste buds with these easy to make stuffed dates!
Look, ma! First new blog post in two years! Heading to a holiday gathering and don’t quite know what to bring? Try this delicious cake with sprouted walnuts! The California Walnut Board created the cake recipe, although we’ve modified some of the ingredients — and obviously added sprouted walnuts! Click on the image to get a PDF version that is printer-friendly so you can make this amazing cake year-round!
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My whole life I've wrestled with being torn between multiple interests. When I was a kid and adults would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, like most, I would give several answers: "I want to be a fireman, or policeman, or astronaut," most kids would say. Except, unlike other kids, I wouldn't say "or."
In June 2013 we moved to a new town to engage in our second full-time ministry role. We poured our heart and soul into the work we were doing -- and it seemed to be having a meaningful and positive impact on the 400+ people we worked with around the world. In fact, things were going so well that we were in regular conversations with leadership about eventually running the organization. We were thrilled! Surely we were in our sweet spot - the place we'd spend the next 30 years of joyful service. Then, surprisingly, on December 5th, 2017, we were asked “to look for something different” by the leaders. There was no clear reason - they just didn't feel like we were going the direction they wanted to go, and instead of inviting into the new direction, they felt it'd be better if we left completely. Our world shattered in one fateful afternoon. Three days later, they asked us to stop coming to the office and stop communicating with our people around the world. They told our team that we were "taking a sabbatical" to reflect on "what God might be calling us to". We felt dejected; tossed out like yesterday's trash. Much of the hope we've found has been the result of finding our footing, even in such a long freefall. Our vision to help people reconnect with what matters most surfaced during that first critical year of recovery; the "expertise" of recovering from surprising and devastating setbacks was an un-sought-out silver lining. To keep you along with our journey...
