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Last week I found myself on the radio talking about the importance of being together in our journey of faith, how in a world where we often find ourselves 'connecting' virtually, there was still a need for us to be together as human beings – connecting, caring, challenging, hoping, supporting – physically, sharing space and being present to one another.

This radio interview followed my previous article in this column last Saturday in which I shared something of the need for connection and journeying together as part of our spiritual pilgrimage – and that we are better together.

On Sunday, my community of St John the Divine Anglican Church gathered for worship with a special guest who came to speak to us during the service and to respond in a Question and Answer session immediately following – the guest was the Imam from the Masjid al-Iman Mosque on Quadra, Sheik Ismail Nur. This was a time of listening and learning together which many of us felt was a strong statement about our shared values and our desire to learn from one another – Muslim and Christian – and to stand together, supporting and caring for one another, particularly in the light of current statements and actions coming from the United States.

Then Sunday afternoon happened. A shooting at a Mosque in Ste-Foy, Quebec where six men were killed and another nineteen injured. The shooting hot on the heels of both the vilification of Muslims in the USA and of a moment of new friendship being forged in my own community with our Muslim neighbours on Quadra Street – what a contrast.

When I wrote about being 'better together' in Saturday's paper I was thinking of a shared spiritual journey in community – primarily an individual faith community such as a Mosque, Synagogue, Church – but one which would impact upon our relationships between communities and groups which serve the needs of society.Ìý Now I would be even more explicit and say that it's a spiritual discipline, a calling, to engage in relationships between different faith communities. This is an acknowledgement of our shared values, our common purpose, and our commitment to loving community.Ìý It is also tied up with the God who embraces us all and who reveals Godself in many ways, through many cultures, and traditions.

For many years, religious communities have been keen to emphasise their distinctiveness and differences with other faith groups or even traditions within their own faith.Ìý I grew up in a tradition which made it very clear that they (we) were 'protestant, reformed and conservative' as an 'evangelical charismatic' church fellowship.Ìý We liked our labels.Ìý These distinctions also came with the implicit statement that we were NOT catholic, nor liberal, nor a whole load of other things which were considered somehow inadequate, or just plain wrong. Likewise there was a view held in the fellowships of my youth that anyone beyond the boundaries of our own labels were somehow beyond God's preferred way of being and doing – that meant that those of other traditions, especially those of any other religions, were pretty much unsaved and unsavable.Ìý We were more obsessed with making sure people were 'out' than with the possibility that God might want to include and welcome all people.

It's so much easier to play on difference, to give ourselves a sense of belonging by making sure that we know who those who don't belong are.Ìý Our politicians have often tried to do this, it was prevalent in the last 91Ô­´´ federal election, and it is certainly the way in which the current Administration in the United States has built up its support base – by capitalising upon and spreading prejudice and misinformation towards those of other races and religions.

Such a teaching runs contrary to the understanding that Jesus sought to share with his followers and which was the way of the church in its earliest days – Jesus welcomed the outsider and included the excluded. The most famous Bible verse of all, John Chapter 3 verse 16, says "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son..." - not that God loved the Western world, or the white world, or the Christian world, or any small section of society, but that God loved and loves the world.

When we build up divisions we turn against the love and compassion which is at the heart of any spirituality – the calling to 'Love God, neigbour, and self' which is at the heart of the Jewish and Christian tradition and which is shared with all the great faiths of the world, including the other 'people of the book' who share roots in the Middle East, those adherents of Islam.

Being together is more than just finding a group of like-minded people who will simply re-inforce our own views and prejudices – in our spiritual journeying being together means being open to the outsider, the different, the seeker of any tradition or faith.Ìý It means turning beyond our comfort zone to meet our neighbour, and meet our neighbour's needs. It means being open to learn and to grow, to value difference and recognise our own need to be open to new ways of understanding, new ways of seeing, new ways of loving and serving.

So in this City of Victoria, indeed beyond this city and across our Islands and province, we stand together with our Muslim sisters and brothers – people of all faiths and none stand together and declare that we are on a shared journey, we support you and we love you.Ìý We find our strength in diversity and recognise that we have much to learn from and about each other.Ìý May God give us grace to be open, compassionate, and stronger together in our difference and in our similarities.

Alastair McCollumÌýis Rector of St. John the Divine Anglican Church in Victoria. He has a passion for the Gospel, motorbikes andÌýÌýÌýbike culture, worship, philosophy, theology, guitars, single malt whisky, real ale, cinema and all things French.ÌýYou can find Alastair at the church website: ÌýandÌýon his blog:Ìý

You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking,