Surprise surprise continued.

One last thing,  over the years we have been on a search  around the Uk for less organised and more organic expressions of Christian community and have often been disappointed with what we found. 
Frank Viola made this statement in a recent blog post... 

"In discovering what is often described as an organic expression of Church is almost always a small-is-beautiful version of the institutional church. And some of them are highly-legalistic, highly-toxic groups"

This is sadly what we have found, not in all cases and it's probably a bit unfair to say that everyone was highly toxic, but most had not given the headship over to Jesus and were often lead by Mr and Mrs Pastor who even with the best of intentions shape things according to their own agenda.

Anyway back to my original reason for posting, "How then shall we live and how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land" ? 
There is much to learn from those who have gone before and as I/we journey on with the dispersed community from Northumbria, structure our day around the daily office, make ourselves available to God and each other, leaving space to give hospitality to the stranger and being Church without walls we will find ourselves on a new adventure, the next part of the journey, Further up and Further in. 

By the way being Church without walls is an inclusive thing, we feel comfortable with all of the community of saints regardless of labels and distinctives but our roots are firmly with those who intentionally live a shared life, who regard nothing as there own and who exist in genuine koinonia community.

Surprise, surprise.

I think the surprise is on me, this is my first post since sometime in 2011... six years of silence.
Recent health issues have meant time at home, time to read, time to think, time to catch up, basically time.
My wife and I have just stopped working for the charity we set up some six years ago and have realised how much time the project took up, in fact nearly all our time was consumed by it.

So it all happened at once, I retired from St Judes, and developed some health issues almost immediately. I guess they were already there but I didn't have time to notice.

I was reading a book by Paul Wallis on new monasticism recently where he commented that during his time as an Anglican vicar he realised that his life was so busy that he didn't have the time to meet the needs of those who came to him outside of his scheduled program. Often missing the opportunity to feed the hungry clothe the naked etc.

Just recently I have realised the benefit of having a Rule to live by, you know what I mean a monastic rule not a set of rules, but a statement of purpose, an answer to to question "How Should We Live". 
Not being one to reinvent the wheel or any other component for that matter, I have become very thankful to the Northumbria Community who many years ago asked the same question and have ever since been on a Journey of discovery. The wisdom that they have discovered is available via the good old WWW. or in printed matter available from all good book sellers.

I have been using the daily office for some time and have found the discipline of the liturgy freeing and releasing, which for those who know me of old will be a great shock. I guess age really does change perspective and bring wisdom, perhaps the wisdom is a bit of a stretch but there is no doubt that I am comfortable with things that at one time I wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole.

I have again been reminded that busyness is not the same as Godliness and that activity that consumes all your time can easily take you away from the one thing that is important, or the one thing that is necessary see Lk10:42.
So in my 59th year I am rediscovering the beauty of genuine koinonia community, of journeying with others of a like mind, of spending time in quiet reflection and rediscovering that the Jesus I follow is still there. I/we were just to busy to realise.