Companion Guidance to the Charter and Quick Starter
v1.0 – August 31, 2026
Approximate reading time: 17 minutes
This resource may be freely downloaded, printed, and shared for the life and practice of Proximity Fellowship.
A Word Before You Begin
Christians have long differed in good conscience about many questions of practice. Proximity Fellowship does not ask those differences to disappear before Christians may gather. This Guide exists to help local fellowships approach several recurring practices with clarity, charity, and responsible attention to Scripture.
The Proximity Fellowship Charter governs the Framework. This Guide is companion guidance to the Charter and The Proximity Fellowship Quick Starter. The Quick Starter helps a fellowship begin. This Guide goes further where particular practices need more explanation. It may explain a Constitutional Requirement, recommend a practice, or offer examples where the Charter leaves room. It does not amend the Charter, create new Constitutional Requirements, or turn recommendations into hidden requirements.
Proximity Fellowship is anchored in the historic Protestant Christian tradition, including the Protestant canon of Scripture received by the Framework. At the same time, Christians from Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and other traditions may participate in good faith where they can affirm the common Christian foundation and respect the Charter’s constitutional boundaries. The Guide therefore does not pretend that Christian differences are insignificant. It seeks enough clarity for Christians to gather honestly without demanding manufactured uniformity.
Where the Charter leaves a matter open, local Christians remain responsible to seek Scripture, pray, listen well, exercise conscience, and discern together with humility and love. A recommendation in this Guide should remain a recommendation. Where the Charter establishes a boundary, the Guide should explain that boundary faithfully rather than soften it, enlarge it, or create another one beside it.
Gathering faithfully across real differences can itself become a school of Christian maturity and unity, teaching us to depend more directly and deeply upon Christ Himself as our Head and to grow together in Christlikeness. In this, grace and faith are not merely confessed, but lived.
This Guide is offered in that spirit. It is meant to help Christians practice fellowship with seriousness and freedom while remembering that no guide can carry the ordinary responsibilities of Christian life for them. Christ remains the Head, Scripture remains the norm, and Christians must still learn to follow Him together.
Scripture and Bible Versions
Scripture in the Proximity Framework
The Charter receives Holy Scripture as the authoritative written norm for Christian faith and life. It also establishes the biblical canon used by the Framework: the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament commonly received within historic Protestant Christianity. This Guide does not reopen that constitutional question. Its purpose here is practical, to help local fellowships choose and use Bible editions responsibly.
Choosing a Bible Translation
Proximity Fellowship does not prescribe one mandatory Bible translation. For common reading and teaching, a fellowship should ordinarily use a reputable translation responsibly translated from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek biblical texts and suitable for the people gathered. Different responsible translation approaches may be used. Accuracy, intelligibility, and faithfulness to the biblical text matter more than loyalty to one publisher, tradition, or preferred English style.
Reading and Comparing Translations
Participants may freely bring and consult different Bible translations. Comparing responsible translations can sometimes help a fellowship notice wording, context, or interpretive questions that deserve closer attention. Differences between translations should not become tests of spiritual maturity or occasions for unnecessary rivalry. Where a question matters, Participants may examine the passage carefully and seek appropriate help rather than assuming that one familiar wording settles every interpretive issue.
Paraphrases, Study Notes, and Editorial Material
Paraphrases may sometimes help with illustration, devotional reflection, or initial understanding, but they should not ordinarily serve as the primary text for establishing doctrine or normative teaching within a Proximity Fellowship. Study notes, section headings, introductions, maps, cross-references, commentary, and other editorial material may be useful, but they should be clearly distinguished from the biblical text itself.
Participants From Other Christian Traditions
Participants from Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, or other Christian traditions may personally use Bible editions received within their own traditions. No Participant is required to renounce such an edition in order to gather through Proximity. For Scripture presented publicly in the name of Proximity Fellowship, however, the Protestant canon established by the Charter governs. The Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal books should not be presented as part of Holy Scripture for establishing doctrine, Constitutional Requirements, or normative Christian teaching within the Framework.
Worship, Hymns, and Songs
Worship in the Gathered Fellowship
Christian worship should direct attention toward God rather than toward the personality, skill, or prominence of those who lead. A Proximity Fellowship may worship through singing, prayer, Scripture, thanksgiving, silence, testimony, or other appropriate forms. The Framework does not require one musical style, instrument, order, level of formality, or historical period. A simple gathering may worship as genuinely as one with trained musicians or a carefully prepared liturgy.
Theological Care in Hymns and Songs
Proximity Fellowship recommends that hymns, songs, and other sung material used in a gathering be chosen with responsible attention to Scripture and be consistent with the historic Protestant Christian tradition in which the Framework is anchored. Because songs can teach as well as express worship, their words deserve thoughtful consideration. Popularity, familiarity, emotional power, or musical quality should not by themselves determine whether a song is suitable for common Christian worship.
Tradition, Authorship, and Christian Breadth
This recommendation concerns theological content rather than the denominational identity of a songwriter or the tradition from which a song comes. A fellowship may use ancient hymns, psalms, historic Protestant hymns, contemporary songs, or material received from other Christian traditions where the words can be sung in good faith within the Framework. A song need not have been written by a Protestant Christian in order to be suitable for a Proximity gathering.
Language, Culture, and Musical Form
Local fellowships remain free to use the languages, musical forms, instruments, and cultural expressions that serve the people gathered. No musical culture should be treated as inherently more spiritual merely because it is older, newer, quieter, more expressive, more formal, or more familiar to a particular tradition. Where Participants come from different backgrounds, thoughtful variety can help worship remain genuinely shared rather than belonging to only one group.
Participation and Conscience
No Participant should be pressured to sing words that they cannot affirm in good conscience. Where a song raises a serious theological concern, Participants may discuss it respectfully and choose another song where appropriate. The purpose of such care is not to create suspicion around every lyric. It is to help the fellowship worship truthfully, intelligibly, and together under Christ.