A Framework for Christian Fellowship
v1.0 – August 31, 2026
This resource may be freely downloaded, printed, and shared for the life and practice of Proximity Fellowship.
Download the Proximity Charter
EPUB eBook | Print-ready PDF
A Word Before You Begin
You do not need to master this Charter before gathering. The Proximity Fellowship Quick Starter is enough to help a small fellowship begin. This Charter is here for the moments when a question becomes more serious, responsibility grows, or a fellowship needs to know what the Framework actually requires, recommends, or leaves to local discernment.
The Charter is the constitutional text of the Proximity Fellowship Framework. It establishes a common Christian foundation, a small number of requirements that protect the identity and integrity of the Framework, guidance for healthy fellowship, and substantial room for local Christian freedom.
It does not attempt to provide a rule for every circumstance. Where the Framework leaves a matter open, Christians should remain free to exercise prayer, wisdom, conscience, love, humility, and mature responsibility together. A document can provide structure and safeguards. It cannot live the Christian life on behalf of those who use it.
No provision in this Charter replaces the headship of Christ or the authority of Scripture. The Framework is a human instrument. It should be examined in light of Scripture and used in service of Christian fellowship, never treated as an object of allegiance in itself.
Proximity Fellowship is offered to Christians from different traditions who can gather in good faith within this common framework. Differences do not need to disappear before fellowship can begin. At the same time, freedom within the Framework does not mean the absence of boundaries. What is required should be clear. What is recommended should remain recommendation. What is genuinely left open should remain open.
Read this Charter as your circumstances require. Return to it when questions arise. Where its language proves unclear, incomplete, or unwise, it should remain open to careful correction. The purpose is not to make the Framework larger. The purpose is to help Christians gather faithfully under Christ.
Comprehensive in what it must address. Restrained in what it must prescribe.
Clear enough to guide. Simple enough to live.
Preamble: The Spirit of the Framework
Proximity Fellowship begins with a simple conviction. Christians should be able to draw near to Christ and to one another without unnecessary barriers.
The Christian faith is not the possession of a denomination, institution, ministry, theological school, personality, or generation. Christ is the Head of His Church, and Scripture is the norm for Christian faith and life. Proximity Fellowship therefore does not claim to stand between Christ and His people. It offers a Framework intended to serve Christians as they gather together.
Christians come from different traditions, cultures, histories, and forms of church life. Those differences do not need to disappear before fellowship can begin. Proximity seeks sufficient common ground for Christians to pray, open Scripture, encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens, and grow in faithfulness to Christ. It does not require agreement on every secondary question.
At the same time, unity does not mean that every belief or practice must be treated as equally consistent with the Framework. Some convictions belong to the common Christian foundation. A small number of additional boundaries protect the identity, integrity, and safety of the Framework. Beyond those boundaries, substantial room remains for Christian conviction, local responsibility, and different forms of faithful practice.
This Charter is intentionally limited. It cannot anticipate every circumstance, and it should not attempt to do so. Christians who gather through Proximity remain responsible for exercising prayer, wisdom, discernment, conscience, humility, love, forgiveness, and mature judgment. A Framework can provide common ground, guidance, and safeguards. It cannot carry the responsibilities of Christian life on behalf of the people who use it.
Where the Charter establishes a boundary, that boundary should be clear enough to be understood and honored. Where it offers guidance, guidance should not quietly become law. Where it leaves a matter open, local Christians should not manufacture unnecessary requirements merely because one practice is familiar to them. Simplicity is not the absence of conviction. It is the discipline of requiring only what is genuinely necessary.
Strong conviction should never become a reason for contempt, manipulation, or personal control. Christians may disagree seriously and still owe one another dignity, truthfulness, patience, and charity. No Host, teacher, elder, steward, initiator, or other person owns another Christian’s conscience or faith. Responsibility may be entrusted to people, but no human being should become indispensable.
Proximity Fellowship also recognizes its own limits. It is an imperfect Framework offered by imperfect Christians. Its provisions may need clarification or correction as experience reveals weaknesses or as better understanding develops. Such correction should be careful rather than restless. Development should not be assumed to require more rules, more procedures, or more institutional weight.
The Framework is a means, not an end. Its purpose is fulfilled when it helps Christians gather faithfully under Christ and draw nearer to Him and to one another. If a fellowship becomes healthy enough that it no longer needs the Framework, that need not be treated as failure. The fellowship is the purpose. The Framework is the means.
This Charter should be read in that spirit. What is essential should remain clear. What is guidance should remain guidance. What is genuinely open should remain open. Wherever the Framework serves Christian fellowship without drawing attention away from Christ, it is doing its proper work.
Christ is the Head. Scripture is the norm. No human being is indispensable.
How This Charter Works
This Charter speaks with different levels of authority. To use it faithfully, readers should distinguish what Proximity confesses, what every Proximity Fellowship must respect, what the Framework recommends, and what remains entrusted to local Christian discernment. These four layers give the Charter its structure.
1. Foundational Christian Confession
This is the common Christian foundation of Proximity Fellowship. It identifies the historic Christian faith within which the Framework understands itself and gathers. It is a common floor, not a complete system of theology.
2. Constitutional Requirements
These are the small number of provisions that a gathering must respect if it publicly identifies as a Proximity Fellowship. They protect the identity, integrity, safety, and truthful use of the Framework. A local preference or majority decision cannot set aside a Constitutional Requirement.
3. Framework Principles and Guidance
These provisions offer serious counsel for healthy Christian fellowship. They express the direction and wisdom of the Framework without becoming hidden law. Local fellowships should receive them thoughtfully and apply them with judgment appropriate to their circumstances.
4. Local Christian Freedom
Matters genuinely left open by the Charter belong to local Christian discernment. Participants may address them according to Scripture, conscience, Christian conviction, prayer, wisdom, their circumstances, and applicable law. Local freedom remains subject to the Constitutional Requirements and to the dignity and safety of others.
Reading the Charter
When a question arises, these distinctions should remain visible. A recommendation should not become a requirement through habit or influence. A local custom should not be treated as universal merely because it works well in one fellowship. Where the Charter leaves room, that room should remain real. Where it establishes a boundary, that boundary should be honored plainly.
The purpose of these distinctions is practical. A fellowship should be able to know what it must hold, what it should take seriously, and where it may decide for itself.
PART I
Foundational Christian Confession
Proximity Fellowship begins with the Christian faith itself. This Part states the common confession within which the Framework gathers and identifies the historic Protestant Christian tradition in which the Framework is anchored. It remains intentionally concise, sufficient for a shared Christian foundation without becoming a complete system of theology.
Article 1. The Common Christian Foundation
1.1 The Historic Christian Faith
Proximity Fellowship is grounded in the historic Christian faith confessed by the apostles and received by the Church through the centuries. The Framework does not ask Christians to abandon their churches, traditions, or theological schools in order to gather through it.
The Framework asks for a genuine common confession. This confession provides sufficient Christian ground for Participants to recognize one another as fellow believers in Christ and to gather together in good faith.
1.2 One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Proximity confesses one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, holy and righteous, loving and merciful, and worthy of worship, trust, and obedience.
The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Proximity receives this confession within the historic Christian faith in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit gives life, dwells in God’s people, and works in and through the Church.
1.3 Jesus Christ, Truly God and Truly Human
Proximity confesses Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Lord, truly God and truly human. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived without sin and proclaimed the kingdom of God.
He is Lord, and Christian fellowship within Proximity is centered upon Him.
1.4 His Death and Bodily Resurrection
Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the dead. His death and resurrection stand at the heart of the gospel and of the Christian hope.
He ascended into heaven and reigns as Lord. He will come again, the dead will be raised, and God will judge with righteousness. The hope of everlasting life rests in Christ and in the promises of God.
1.5 Salvation by Grace Through Faith in Christ
Human beings are created by God in His image and therefore possess inherent dignity and worth. Humanity is also fallen in sin and cannot be reconciled to God by human merit or achievement.
Salvation is the gracious work of God through Jesus Christ and is received through faith in Him. Those who belong to Christ are called to repentance, obedience, holiness, love, and good works as the fruit of grace, not as a means of earning God’s acceptance.
Proximity does not require one denominational explanation of every question concerning the order or manner of salvation. The gospel of Jesus Christ belongs to the common foundation of Proximity Fellowship.
1.6 Holy Scripture as the Authoritative Written Norm
Proximity receives the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the authoritative written norm for Christian faith and life. Scripture is received for teaching, correction, discernment, and faithful living.
The Charter, the Framework, ProximityFellowship.org, traditions, teachers, resources, and local practices remain human instruments. None stands above Scripture, and no human formulation within Proximity should be treated as infallible.
Scripture is the norm.
1.7 Historic Protestant Christian Tradition and the Canon of Scripture
Within this common Christian foundation, Proximity Fellowship is anchored in the historic Protestant Christian tradition. This describes the theological location of the Framework, including its understanding of the canon of Holy Scripture. It does not require every Participant to belong to a Protestant denomination or to leave another Christian tradition.
For the purposes of the Proximity Framework, the biblical canon consists of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament commonly received within historic Protestant Christianity. The books commonly called Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal are not received as part of the biblical canon within Proximity. They are not used by the Framework as Scripture for establishing doctrine, Constitutional Requirements, or normative Christian teaching.
Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and other Christians may participate in good faith where they can affirm the common Christian foundation and respect the constitutional character of the Framework. Proximity therefore seeks to practice ecumenical hospitality with theological clarity about the tradition in which the Framework is anchored.
1.8 The Church Belongs to Christ
Proximity confesses that the Church belongs to Jesus Christ. Those who belong to Christ are His people and His body, called to worship God, hear Scripture, pray, encourage one another, serve one another, bear witness to the gospel, and live together in love.
The Church is not the possession of Proximity Fellowship, ProximityFellowship.org, any denomination, ministry, leader, network, or human institution. Proximity exists to serve Christian fellowship. It does not claim ownership of Christ’s Church.
1.9 A Common Floor, Not a Complete Theology
The common Christian confession stated in this Article is deliberately sufficient rather than exhaustive. Proximity’s historic Protestant orientation identifies the theological and canonical location of the Framework without making every Protestant doctrine or denominational distinctiveness a condition of participation.
The Charter does not attempt to settle every question concerning baptism, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, church government, liturgical form, predestination, the detailed order of salvation, creation models, theories of atonement, or the timing and manner of events surrounding Christ’s return. Where the Charter leaves such matters open, Christians may hold and discuss their convictions with humility, conscience, prayer, and responsible attention to Scripture.
The absence of a subject from this Foundational Christian Confession does not mean that the Framework has no constitutional boundary concerning it. Part II establishes the Constitutional Requirements that govern the public practice and integrity of a Proximity Fellowship.
A Participant should be able to affirm the common Christian foundation in good faith and respect the Framework’s stated constitutional boundaries and Protestant orientation. Beyond these, differences may remain wherever the Charter leaves them open.