Karen Ward in the House!

I loved this recent post from Karen Ward up there in Seattle. She titles it – ‘Big Bro Abbey’ in the House – and reflects on:

“…Being part of a big tribe like the Anglican communion (YES THERE ARE many things we emergents can learn from our modern, trad. Denominational peers) and for me to say this…is a sign that emergents are moving away from being mostly brats and towards integration... cause if you just keep deconstructing, you will become Hannibal lector-ized and hit (your own) bone and never have time or energy to construct anything good, so that is one reason I started this new blog, as deepdirt.org was an expression of my big phat deconstruction period so I needed to start fresh with submergence, as it aims at a more constructive future…”

Very cool stuff that really resonates (over the years I’ve posted a lot on what I see as the benefits, possibilities, and challenges of re-modelled monasticism (here for example) and belonging to the Anglican tribe).

I think one of the big challenges is stopping ourselves from making something that isn’t faddish faddish! (Particularly when it is not naturally a part of our tribal tradition). Karen is quite right when she writes, “there is no faddish aspect (like, wow, we just *discovered* a cool old thing called the book of common prayer...) but a depth of faith and lived practices (not just preferences) across the ages” but there is a tension because we live in a culture that puts significant store in “consumption“ and “utilitarianism” (i.e. using things, people etc). We too easily import “cool” ideas, taking them out of their contexts and the ‘soil’, within which they were planted, grew, matured, and produced fruit.

That said, I continue to think that variants of traditional Christian “monasticism” or “lay religious orders” have an important role to play (perhaps in mentored relationships with trad. Monastics) in these so-called postmodern times (I reminded Kevin Rain’s on Saturday of a conversation we began quite some time ago on just this subject. It continues to bubble away amongst folk (Aaron Klinefelter and others) in Vineyard Central, and many other places, including here in NZ – see Steve Taylor – here). Picture (hopefully you’ve seen it, or can get to see it) Alan Roxburgh’s diagram on pg. If you haven’t, check out Aaron Klinefelters blog – here – where he has a localised derivative of Alan’s diagram. Perhaps mine is a modified version of Alan’s?

The key points for me are:

• A core group (“bounded set”) very intentionally centred on our triune God, neighbour, and the “missio Dei.” Or as other groups (e.g. Church of our Saviour, Washington D.C. / Living Room) express it: “the upward journey, the inner journey, the outer journey.” It is a core group that have made very real commitments to each other and to this expression of church (these might be annual commitments or “vows” to “belong” which might be renewed each year (as in the case of say Cityside Baptist and Graceway Baptist);
• An unbounded set containing all who are being drawn toward Jesus at varying rates and with varying degrees of intentionality and commitment. This will include observers, seekers, visitors, new people, and regular attendees;
• a sense of movement and journey, i.e. this community is active in partnering God in his redemptive, re-creating, restorative, and shalom-making work. They have moved from being an “audience” to active participants in that work.

Now imagine if at the “core” of the church was a community or type of ‘monastic’ “chapter” house – a group of people that had covenanted to live together (urban and/or rural) as an intentional community – intentionally gathered together around service, prayer (e.g. daily office), hospitality, contemplation, social justice and peace-making, eucharist, learning (a big emphasis on orthopraxy), and living simply. The outward dimension of church would be about genuine service; creating multiple “entry points” to church, Kingdom-belonging, and community; exercising creativity; it would be about active resistance and the embodying of an alternative way of being human (centred on Jesus), of relating to God in the midst of the ordinary and the everyday, of relating rightly to creation (may have a focus on urban or rural renewal), and to one’s neighbour. This outward focus would be less about breadth and more about depth, i.e. joining in on the one or two things that God is discerned (a communal process over time) to be doing, and that God is inviting participation in. It would be very very contextualised – birthed rather than imported!

This book - To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City by Mark R. Gornik – captures well the practical and theological issues that underpin my necessarily brief comments above. Reviewed here by Brian Walsh.

Comments

[christina]

paul - firstly, thanks for checking out my wee blog! i've been reading yours for a while now so it was a delight to see that you'd visited :)

i like everything you've said here. you've articulated much of what i'm trying to explore for the paper i'm writing (community being intentional and authentic and not 'faddish'). i still react a little strangely when i see a circle with a 'solid' line around it (i think i see 'in vs out')...but i think i'm getting the point about the 'intentional' bit. commitment (covenanting) to doing life together in a way that is intensely outward focused. what you've written about this 'core' really makes sense to me, especially relating to god in the midst of the everyday/ordinary, and i'm definately going to incorporate 'monastic' themes into what i'm writing. thanks paul (+karen)