The institute Orthopraxis’ distinctive mission is to provide opportunities for youth to live the “Liturgy after the Liturgy”
The Orthopraxis Institute emerges out of the 22 years of experience with the New Horizons Foundation that was started in the Jiu Valley in 1999. Models developed by New Horizons have become global best practices. The IMPACT club developed in the Jiu Valley is now in 30 countries around the world!
Youth development that is truly Christian has but one ultimate aim: to help youth grow in the virtues that culminate in love. Orthopraxis’ fundamental conviction is that authentic faith (responding to God’s love) is necessarily expressed through practical love–service in and for the world.
Vision
Humans were created to learn how to love (Maximus). All persons, but especially youth, deserve the chance not only of receiving love, but themselves learning to love. It is the challenging but ultimately blessed pedagogical vision of “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20)
Tagore: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Mission
Orthopraxis’ distinctive mission is to provide opportunities for youth to live the “Liturgy after the Liturgy” – a practical philosophy of growing in love through creative community service.
John Chrysostom wrote: “Regula perfectă a Creştinismului, definiţia sa exactă, rezumatul său cel mai înalt, este aceasta: să cauţi ce este in folosul tuturor.” (Sf. Ioan Gură de Aur)
Values
Orthopraxis’ programs are based on experiential learning approaches, namely “service-learning” whereby youth themselves identify community burdens (Gal. 6:2) and learn the skills to resolve them. Herein, persons grow through engaging in active, creative love in their communities. This in turn shapes character (virtue), which in turn gives rise to further loving actions. The goal is growth in both character and depth of action as “God loves the cheerful [character] giver [action/contribution].” Growth in love also means a growth in knowledge and depth of insight (Phil 1:9) – one can even say a growth in love’s competency.
This we call “education for transformation” and to this end, we have developed a unique pedagogical model based on the “3C’s”; Character, Contribution, and Competence as the three interrelated outcomes of love.