Mission and Values

CSR 2025 – 2027+
Vision, Values, Mission, Model

We are at a key crossroads in time; some would call it a 500-year social and spiritual delta. Whether we welcome it or not, a major restructuring in the way the Christian faith is communicated, lived, and passed on is already happening. We can either engage with it positively or bury our heads and try to pretend it isn’t happening. We can allow it to be just inward and individualistic or we can offer a broader approach which also embraces people and communities working together and looking outward based on a renewed Anglican approach of building the kingdom for the common good of all. This would be based on kindness and compassion with the prophetic challenge to do better particularly for those at the greatest disadvantage.

CSR’s Vision and Values

CSR’s work is intensely practical. Drawing upon our understanding of the Christian faith and inspired by the concept of the ‘common good’, we pursue an integrated vision of flourishing people living in flourishing communities.

Specifically, we seek to equip and resource individuals and communities to realise their full potential, with the capacity to respond positively to the challenges and pressures they meet. In seeking to promote and sustain social resilience, we root our actions in values which Jesus himself demonstrated: love, compassion, and justice – as we seek to build the kingdom he came to announce on earth. We are committed to working alongside and with whole communities, embracing transformation that is already in progress. We seek to develop new relationships and, where appropriate, link our work to local Anglican communities.

In line with our Christian values, our approach is always unconditional, non-judgmental and inclusive. CSR will encourage positive change, challenging the status quo, and aim to do so with fun, creativity, passion, energy and commitment. Our work is based on authenticity, evidence, and strengths-based approaches, with a strong commitment to social justice underpinning everything we do, and with the tools of social action, social engagement, and social enterprise.

A Biblical and Theological basis

Our commitment to social responsibility is rooted in our understanding of God as the creator and sustainer of all aspects of life, social, material, cultural, spiritual. Scripture is clear that all people are created in God’s image, that all have equal status in God’s eyes, and that all are to enjoy God’s creation to the full; and that God looks to individuals and communities to work with him in making this happen.

The earliest chapters of Genesis contain a mandate to humanity to tend and care for the earth and the created order. In other books of the Law, the principles of Sabbath and Jubilee are introduced to ensure that no one is excluded from a community through lack of access to land or entrapment in debt, and that divisions between rich and poor, slaves and free, do not become entrenched. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, are injunctions to practise business with integrity and compassion, to refrain from exploiting others, and always to prioritise the interests of the widow, the fatherless, the destitute and the stranger. God desires to see communities operating on the principles of peace, justice, and inclusion, with the responsibility for ensuring this, resting on the people of God.

In the New Testament, Jesus affirms the principle of Jubilee at the start of his ministry and announces that he has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). That he means the materially poor and physically disabled, not only the ‘poor in spirit’ or ‘spiritually blind’, is clear from the Gospel accounts of his love and practical concern for those pushed to the margins of society. When asked to explain who he is, Jesus evidences the fruits of his ministry: ‘the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them’ (Luke 7:22). His calling is encapsulated in his statement that he has come that all ‘may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10), and in his teaching about the kingdom, which he clearly understood as involving a hope for the transformation of this world and its structures.

Thus, our vision for the development, renewal, and flourishing of people and communities is rooted in what we understand to be a core message of Scripture, and also in our recognition that we are called, as Christians and churches, to act in response to that message. As the letter of James reminds us, ‘faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead’ (James 2:17). Our action, then, is firmly rooted in our faith: it is undertaken in the knowledge and understanding that ultimately it is God’s work, not our own.

This truth highlights a distinctive of projects attempted under the banner of Christian social responsibility, namely that they are grounded, not in a confidence in our own human abilities, but in our faith in God. A further lesson we draw from Scripture is its view of human nature: the Old Testament, for example, consistently highlights the failure of God’s people to act in accordance with his will, and their propensity even to practise injustice themselves, and the New Testament cites many examples of the weakness of the early followers of Christ. Rather than a belief in any qualities we may have, our approach is rooted in our belief in what God has done. In other words, we are inspired, not only by Jesus’ example, but by our faith and hope in him. Our action is a response to the grace, love, and acceptance we have received from him. In all that the Church seeks to do, including practical action to promote the common good and enhance the welfare of all, it draws on resources beyond itself. Its overarching aim is to work for the kingdom, which is, of course, the kingdom of God.

CSR Model