(1) Partnership not ownership.

City Lights is relational, grass roots and Jesus focused. It is decentralized and friendship-based, committed to putting aside agendas in order to be unified in the essentials: Our love for God and people.

It is non-denominational and not governed by one church or organisation.


(2) Service as worship and lifestyle

We believe that “doing” comes out of “being”. Therefore, we cannot separate worship and prayer from action. We believe holiness is social as well as personal. Serving others is an incredibly valuable and necessary expression of our faith. In the Bible, it says: "You see that their faith and actions were working together, and their faith was made complete by what they did." (James 2:22). We believe that our faith life is weak and incomplete until we learn to outwork our love for Jesus in practical ways.

We want to encourage people to adopt a lifestyle of service and faith, hand in hand. This lifestyle goes far beyond the occasional event. We long to see simple acts of kindness reshaping peoples' lives and priorities in every day life. In light of this, the City Lights events are meant to serve as catalysts; an exposure to needs and en equipping and encouraging of groups of people and individuals to find a way to meet the felt needs of others.


(3) Gathering and scattering

One of the ways we express this, is through gathering (coming together as a community) and scattering.

This model of gathering has the following purposes:
- It equips and empowers people.
- It connects people.
- It provides a platform for corporate prayer and worship.
- It provides training and education.



(4) Simplicity.

We want to make it easy for individuals to take initiative and express their faith actively in their community. We want to create tangible pathways and accessible entry points in to social action, demystifying the grandiosity of mission.

We want our gatherings to reflect this value, for them to be “incarnational”, not “attractional”. In other words, we are not numbers driven, but people driven; we want to remain organic and genuine in our expression of relationship and community. City Lights is committed to locating itself “in” excluded neighborhoods and becoming a community through: worship (ie singing songs), prayer, learning, fellowship and then service.

We want to serve communities in word and action and in all of this, we see Jesus as our example.


(5) Social Justice.

We have a particular focus on the marginalised, those who are socially disadvantaged and profoundly misunderstood in society.

We want to engage in relationship with people and be concerned with meeting the felt needs of people. That is, not our perception of what their needs are, but what they genuinely need, which comes to light through relationship, not service provision alone.

We literally believe that society has been unjust to some people and we want to make an effort to engage this injustice through kindness and relationship. We believe that the response we make can and does make a difference in people's lives.