Value of simplicity

A couple of friends and I are starting a church. I've been reluctant to take hold of it publicly. There are a variety of reasons that I will probably explore in another posting, but suffice to say I feel a freedom to express it openly now. So here's the first outright posting regarding Case Mountain Community Church.

We're working on a number of foundational documents: mission, values, philosophy, vision/goals, and even a creed. Things are clipping along at a nice pace. Recently, our attention has been on the values. We are thinking of adding simplicity. Below is a bit of my trying to tease out what this might mean:

Simplicity - some definitions and synonyms:

• "the quality of being simple or uncompounded" - Visual Thesaurus
• "a lack of penetration or subtlety" - Visual Thesaurus
• "absence of affectation ("deliberate pretense or exaggerated display") or pretense" - Visual Thesaurus
• "freedom from difficulty or hardship or effort" - Visual Thesaurus
• "lack of ornamentation" - Visual Thesaurus
• the quality of intentionally reducing complexity - me
• sacrificing the peripheral to focus on the important - me
• forfeiting complexity to the gain of only that which is significant - me
• peeling of layers to get to the real - me

Some thoughts or scenarios:

• nakedness or honesty in our relationships with God and others
• developing the art of using the fewest number of words or objects to express, but finding that these simple expressions are pleasing and beautiful
• seeing simplicity as art; to hone the skill of taking complex, disparate, multi-discipline concepts and weave understanding that is lovely
  
• appreciating that the vast majority of things should be expressed in avenues that everyday people can understanding
• using big words when appropriate, but never to distance or violate the person of another
  
• Kingdom principle of entering as a child - allowing all things to start new and fresh, to peel away those attitudes, possessions, and relationships that hinder rather than grow
• Not a lot of chrome
• aesthetic lines that compliment, but rarely take from functionality
• Architecture that servers
  
• Saying what you mean without pleasantries or self-protection
• Realness that honors what is most important and sacrifices self-interest or being misunderstood to love
• an uncompounded thread that weaves through life, God, and meaning
• a tangibility that does not compromise other elements that seem mutually exclusive such as faith and mystery
  

CMCC - values