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Stewardship, Not Ownership
Proximity Fellowship is something to be stewarded, not owned.
Those who help care for the Framework, maintain its public presence, develop its resources, or protect the integrity of its name are entrusted with responsibility. They are not thereby given possession of the Christians or fellowships the Framework serves.
The fellowship belongs to Christ. The Framework exists to serve Christian fellowship, not to become its master.
This page explains how that responsibility is presently carried and the limits within which it is exercised.
Present Stewardship
At present, stewardship of the Proximity Fellowship Framework is carried by its initiator, Michael Lin.
This stewardship concerns the Framework’s public presence and resources, including their maintenance, development, accessibility, continuity, and the truthful public use of the Proximity Fellowship name. It does not create ownership of local fellowships or place their Participants under the personal authority of the steward.
The present arrangement is not intended to remain a single-person responsibility indefinitely. Over the next two years, the intention is to invite additional volunteers to share this work, so that stewardship of ProximityFellowship.org may gradually be carried by a small group, ordinarily between three and seven people.
This is not intended to create a governing body over local fellowships. Its purpose is to share practical responsibility, widen accountability, bring additional perspectives into significant decisions, and reduce dependence on any one individual.
As the Framework matures, stewardship should become more shared, transparent, and capable of continuing beyond its original initiator.
No human being should become indispensable.
What Stewardship Means
The stewardship of Proximity Fellowship concerns the care of the public Framework and its shared resources.
This includes, among other responsibilities:
- maintaining ProximityFellowship.org and making the Framework and its resources publicly accessible
- maintaining an accurate and accessible version of the Charter
- publishing clarifications and other materials that may help explain the Framework
- helping protect the truthful use and public integrity of the Proximity Fellowship name
- receiving questions, concerns, and constructive feedback
- helping provide continuity as stewardship is gradually shared or transferred
Stewardship does not mean governing the Christian lives of Participants or exercising ecclesiastical authority over local fellowships.
Local fellowships remain responsible for their own shared life, relationships, practices, decisions, safeguarding, finances, and other ordinary responsibilities within the Framework’s common boundaries.
The Framework serves the fellowship. The fellowship does not exist to serve the Framework.
The Steward’s Commitments
Significant Decisions Should Not Rest on One Person Alone
Where a significant decision affects a fellowship’s public recognition or another matter of comparable importance, counsel should ordinarily be sought from people who are sufficiently independent of the matter.
Shared counsel does not remove responsibility from the steward. It helps protect significant decisions from becoming merely personal judgments.
Decisions Should Not Rest on Personal Preference
Significant decisions should be measured against the principles, purposes, and boundaries established in the Charter rather than the feelings, preferences, or personal interests of those carrying the stewardship.
Recognition Decisions Concern the Public Name
Where stewardship considers whether a gathering may continue to be publicly recognized as a Proximity Fellowship, the question concerns the truthful public use of the Proximity Fellowship name.
Such a decision does not determine a person’s faith, standing before Christ, or freedom to continue gathering under another name.
Recognition is not a declaration of spiritual superiority. Withdrawal of recognition is not excommunication.
No Steward Is Beyond Question
Those who carry stewardship should remain open to appropriate questions, correction, and review. Where a steward has a personal interest in a matter, that interest should be acknowledged rather than concealed.
Constructive criticism, disagreement, and thoughtful suggestions are not acts of disloyalty.
The purpose of accountability is not suspicion. It is protection for the people involved, for local fellowships, and for the integrity of the Framework itself.
When the Use of the Proximity Fellowship Name Is in Question
Because Proximity Fellowship is decentralized, nearly every local matter should remain local.
ProximityFellowship.org is not expected to supervise every gathering, monitor every disagreement, or guarantee that every fellowship using the Framework is healthy in every respect.
Only rarely, where the public use of the Proximity Fellowship name becomes seriously or persistently inconsistent with the Framework, may the question of recognition arise.
Even then, the first response should ordinarily be conversation, clarification, and a reasonable opportunity to address the concern rather than unnecessary judgment or exclusion.
If recognition is withdrawn, its meaning should remain limited and clear. A fellowship is not thereby declared outside the Church. No judgment is being made about anyone’s salvation or standing before Christ. The people involved remain free to continue gathering.
The question concerns only whether that gathering may continue to represent itself publicly as a Proximity Fellowship.
The Framework Must Remain Open to Question
No steward should be beyond question. Where there is a concern about the stewardship of Proximity Fellowship, it may be raised.
Where a steward has a personal interest in a matter, that interest should be acknowledged rather than concealed.
Questions, concerns, constructive criticism, disagreement, and thoughtful suggestions should be received without treating them as disloyalty.
Questions, concerns, and constructive suggestions may be sent to info@proximityfellowship.org.
Change Without Accumulation
The Framework may need to develop as experience, reflection, safeguarding concerns, and practical circumstances reveal things that need improvement.
But development should not automatically mean adding more rules.
The Proximity Fellowship Framework should remain as simple as possible and only as detailed as necessary. It should provide the clarity, boundaries, guidance, and safeguards genuinely needed for faithful fellowship while resisting unnecessary accumulation.
Not every difficulty requires a new provision. Not every difference requires a new boundary. Not every possible circumstance needs to be anticipated in advance.
This simplicity is intentional.
The Charter and the wider Framework are not designed to provide a rule for every circumstance or a procedure for every difficulty. Their purpose is to establish what is essential without attempting to carry the full responsibility of Christian life on behalf of those who participate.
There will be circumstances in which no additional rule can tell people exactly what faithfulness requires. Christians must then pray, listen, search the Scriptures, seek wisdom, speak truthfully, forgive generously, and discern together.
The Framework can provide a common floor. It can offer guidance, examples, and safeguards. It cannot take the place of Christ’s headship in the life of those who gather through it.
Some things must remain the work of Christians learning to follow Christ together.
It is in that shared work, through prayer, wisdom, truthfulness, forgiveness, and love, that Christians may gradually grow in maturity and learn to reflect the character of Christ more faithfully in the life they share.
When clarification is needed, it should be made with restraint. When guidance can remain simple, it should not be made complicated.
Keep the Framework as simple as possible, and only as detailed as necessary.
Substantive changes to the Charter should be communicated clearly. The current version should remain publicly accessible. Earlier versions may be retained where appropriate for historical transparency.
If Proximity Fellowship Outlives Its Initiator
That is the intention.
The continuation of Proximity Fellowship should not depend upon the survival, reputation, or personal control of the person who first made it publicly available.
If stewardship is eventually shared or transferred, those who receive that responsibility receive stewardship, not ownership of the Framework, the local fellowships, or the Christians who use it.
A change of stewardship should preserve the Charter then in force, public access to the Framework, its decentralized character, the dignity and freedom of Participants, and the distinction between Framework stewardship and ecclesiastical government.
Future stewards may bring different gifts, experience, methods, and judgment. Continuity does not require reproducing the personality or working style of the initiator.
Stewardship may eventually be shared, transferred, reorganized, or concluded if the Framework itself no longer serves a useful purpose.
A Framework that cannot continue without its initiator has not escaped dependence on its initiator.
A Final Word About Stewardship
The Framework is freely offered to Christians who find it useful.
No local fellowship is required to support a central organization financially merely because it uses the Framework.
Financial contribution does not ordinarily purchase greater influence, spiritual authority, or ownership.
Money is a means of stewardship, not a measure of spiritual importance.
No person becomes indebted to ProximityFellowship.org merely because they have participated in a fellowship that uses the Framework.
The steward may care for the Framework. The steward does not become its lord.
Christ is the Head. Scripture is the norm. No human being is indispensable.