Oasis is a welcoming and enabling community, open to all, contributing to personal and communal spiritual enrichment while promoting mutual respect and appreciative understanding of diverse religious paths and cultural traditions.
Oasis as an Interfaith Centre
The mission of Oasis is to enact and promote the practice of radical hospitality.
Radical hospitality may be described as making space – in which we enter respectfully into each other’s worlds in order to understand appreciatively, whether that space for the other be physical, social, emotional, religious or intellectual.
For members of the Oasis team, radical hospitality is intentionally for the benefit of the other, rather than for the satisfaction of one’s own needs.
Hospitality… means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbour into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit. It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opportunity to others to find their God and their way. The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt a life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find their own.
(Henri Nouwen. Reaching Out: The Three Movements in the Spiritual Life. 1975 Doubleday. New York. p 68)
Interfaith Hospitality
In its practice of interfaith hospitality, Oasis enacts and promotes the principles of:
1. The Faith Friendly Communities Charter:
Principle of Mutual Recognition
A faith friendly community recognises the right of all faiths to meet the needs of their respective members in any given community.
Principle of Mutual Concern
A faith friendly community intends to meet the religious and spiritual needs of its members of various faiths.
Principle of Mutual Understanding
A faith friendly community seeks to understand the values and beliefs of each faith in a given community rather than to pass judgement on them.
Principle of Mutual Respect
A faith friendly community seeks to respect the differences between the values and beliefs of its members.
2. Four basic principles of interfaith dialogue identified by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (formerly the British Council of Churches):
Dialogue begins when people meet people
Dialogue depends upon removing misunderstanding and building up trust
Dialogue leads to common service within the community
Dialogue is a means of authentic witness
Oasis as an Interfaith Centre
The mission of Oasis is to enact and promote the practice of radical hospitality.
Radical hospitality may be described as making space – in which we enter each other’s worlds in order to understand appreciatively, whether that space for the other be physical, social, emotional, religious or intellectual.
For members of the Oasis team, radical hospitality is intentionally for the benefit of the other, rather than for the satisfaction of one’s own needs.
Hospitality… means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbour into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated intimidation with good books, good stories and good works, but the liberation of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit. It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria of happiness, but the opportunity to others to find their God and their way. The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt a life style of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find their own.
(Henri Nouwen. Reaching Out: The Three Movements in the Spiritual Life. 1975 Doubleday. New York. p 68)
Interfaith Hospitality
In its practice of interfaith hospitality, Oasis enacts and promotes the principles of:
1. The Faith Friendly Communities Charter:
- Principle of Mutual Recognition
A faith friendly community recognises the right of all faiths to meet the needs of their respective members in any given community. - Principle of Mutual Concern
A faith friendly community intends to meet the religious and spiritual needs of its members of various faiths. - Principle of Mutual Understanding
A faith friendly community seeks to understand the values and beliefs of each faith in a given community rather than to pass judgement on them. - Principle of Mutual Respect
A faith friendly community seeks to respect the differences between the values and beliefs of its members.
2. Four basic principles of interfaith dialogue identified by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (formerly the British Council of Churches):
- Dialogue begins when people meet people
- Dialogue depends upon removing misunderstanding and building up trust
- Dialogue leads to common service within the community
- Dialogue is a means of authentic witness
Travelling Chaplain 