Confirmation is an important stage in the spiritual journey, particularly for those who were baptised as children. It is making a statement about a commitment to the Christian faith as an adult – that your faith is deeply rooted – an outward sign of an inner orientation. It is different from the annual Rhythm of Life service we commit to, because it is a recognised sacramental moment, expressing the deep love between an individual to and with God.  This then expresses the heart of the Trinitarian Christian faith, about being invited to walk ever closer in union with God the Creator, Redeemer and Companion.

I am supporting one mooter who is wanting to be confirmed, so if others are interested get in touch. We could start a small confirmation group which would meet for a couple of sessions in preparation for confirmation which will take place in another central London Church on a Sunday Morning in the early summer.

If you are interested. please email Ian here.

Rightly people have started to ask me the question, what is new monasticism in our current UK context? To begin to answer this, I am going to start putting up blog postings coming out of the discussions I am involved with at the national CofE Advisory Council for Religious Communities and Diocesan Bishops that I was co-opted onto last year. We have been working hard on a proposal to assist the Church to discern, recognise and nurture New Monastic Communities as authentic ‘Acknowledged Religious Communities’. In this document, there is a section on features of new monasticism that I will be using in this blog for our reflection, to which people are more than welcome to respond in the comment section.

So we start with the focus on ‘belief as faithful action’, (you may want to listen to the current podcast entitled followers of Jesus ….. as it does relate to this subject to).

For Monks, Nuns and Friars – there has been the commitment to take very seriously, the stories of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. In these texts, Jesus gives a number of directions and commandments about faith in action. For Jesus it seems – faith is very much about doing – not just thinking. What we do says as much about who we really are. So Jesus’ commandment to Love God, love ourselves and love others – is the central teaching for a faith that leads to action. Also there is the calling to love your enemies, love your neighbour, and a strong call to non-violence. These callings then are very important to new monastics. As illustrated by St Pauls writing in Galatians 5:19-24 there is a strong commitment to the fruit of the Spirit around love, patience, humility in the place of anger, fear and pride.  So how we do community, how we live out and treat each other not just in ecclesial communities, but also how we relate to people has a huge focus in this model of church.

So for new monastics, life then is about belief as faithful action or what is called orthopraxis (right acting or doing). This is why New Monastics have a Rhythm of Life – of the balance of activity of worship, mission and community. So the Moot Community for example has aspirations, spiritual practices and postures which are about how we live as much as they are about what we believe. This is because new monastics believe strongly in what St Francis kept talking about – experience that leads to understanding. So why is this so important? Well as the cynical but truthful video below demonstrates (sorry for the expletives) is that the world is sick of people who call themselves Christians but do not act like they are followers of Jesus Christ. Rightly – the world is not happy with forms and expressions of Christianity that are oppressive or violent in orientation. So for New Monastics – it is about getting back to the basics. The calling to live with the God of love as the orientation of your life, and the struggle to live with gentleness, kindness and humility in a world dominated by power and the ego, and our increasingly post-christendom context.

I think the video below demonstrates this. It is uncomfortable to listen to, because something of what is being said is absolutely true. And for non-Americans – lets not be smug. These same issues are alive and well in the UK Church and beyond. My hope is that New Monasticism in all its smallness and fragility, can play its part in contributing to a more loving expression of church that seeks to follow Christ rather than act like it is God. In this way we hope that New Monastic Christians can be whole, balancing head, heart and wellbeing or rather Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis and Orthopathy and follow Christ so that we can grow into our potentials as human becomings, where discipleship then becomes a whole of life pursuit about living and doing that brings life to ourselves, to others and to the ecosphere. In my next blog, I will try to unpack what the three levels of aspirations, spiritual practices and postures represent. See the vid below! Any questions – do use the comments section.

On Tuesday 31st January 7.15 for 7.30pm we begin a new group at Moot/St Mary Aldermary building on the work that was done in the Exploration Group last year. Living with the Questions is an opportunity for those who have had experience of Church but not really had the opportunity to question, critique and explore some of the foundational thinking that makes up contemporary expressions of Christianity, drawing on 2000 years of struggle and thought.  Below is a little video that explains what the authors are trying to do – BUT PLEASE HEAR – the intro is quite American in style, so don’t be put off!!

The course has a number of teachers involved in it, Rob Bell from the Iona Community, Brian McLaren, Marcus Borg and many others. The course has 3 main elements with 7 sessions with in these. These elements are the journey, reconciliation and transformation. For more information on the elements and what it is about click here. From those that have tried out this course, I hear that it is a real relief to not leave your brain at the door, and it is for those who are wanting to dig deep and find a more affirming, generous and considered faith.

It would help us to know numbers, so if you are planning to come, please do let us know by clicking here.  Click the link also if you have any further questions….

I am really pleased to be able to announce that as part of our spirituality and wellbeing through HOST at St Mary Aldermary, we are starting up a new Monday lunch time meditation group.  As with our wednesday evening meditation group, this will use the John Main repetitive anchor word approach.  The group will last for half an hour with at least a 20 minute silent meditation.  For more information please contact here.

I am really pleased to say that Antoinette is joining our Host team of volunteers, who be assisting leading the group as well as BCP Eucharist. So please do join us if you need a break from work.  The group is open to little no or much experience of meditation.

Mini Moots are a vital part of our life in Moot as a new-monastic community.  Moot is very much a network church, with people spread out all over London and beyond.  Our time together then is very scarce, and mini-moots are an opportunity to meet with around 6 to 8 mooters for food, support, study, prayer and some form of spiritual practice coming from our shared rhythm of life.

A new mini moot is about to start on Saturday brunch times, which is seeking new participants whose work life and other commitments make tuesday attendance very difficult.  This starts on 14 January at 11:00. Nic will be emailing those attending the saturday mini-moot shortly.  If you are interested please get in touch with Ian or Nic, as this will be starting up soon.  Please note that we are expecting people to be committed to turning up to these groups regularly once you start, and that you shouldn’t belong to more than one mini-moot. This new mini-moot will move around areas of central London.

Most other mini-moots meet up on Tuesday evenings timed to fit in with our usual moot programme of events and services, these are currently situated at  Mansion House EC4M, Borough SE1, Tooting/Streatham SW16/17, Forest Hill SE23.  With the new London overground services, these various mini-moots are accessible for those living in East, West and North London.

So if you are interested in joining a mini-moot, please do get in contact .  To be able to join a mini-moot, we do expect people to have become participants in the community demonstrated by joining our electoral roll and attending some of our weekly events on a regular basis. Do speak to me Ian Mobsby if you are wanting to do this.

Happy New Year to Mooters and Moot Friends.
Well another year passes, and a new one begins! I wanted to flag up that we have two saturday learning opportunities and one sunday afternoon lined up.

SATURDAY 28TH JANUARY, 11-4.30, SMA
TOWARDS A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR PARTNER

Following the highly acclaimed saturday learning day on dealing with conflict in community, Pete and Julie Johnson lead a further day looking at the psychological and other needs required for a healthy relationship. This is open to everyone to attend including singles wanting to reflect, those in relationships and those who are preparing for marriage. For more info and to book places click here.

SUNDAY 29th JANUARY, 2-5pm, SMA
LECTIO DIVINA – A DIFFERENT WAY TO READ THE BIBLE REFLECTIVELY

We have talked about Lectio Divina a lot, but not really given people an opportunity to understand what it is or how it works.  We are fortunate to be led on this by a trainer at the London Centre for Spirituality.  This is a treat, and will be at no charge.  Open to participants in the Community, International Friends, and those coming to attend the evening service. For info and to book places click here.

SATURDAY 10th MARCH 10 to 3.30pm, SMA
MOOT PRAYER DEVELOPMENT DAY

Prayer, meditation and contemplation are at the heart of the Moot Rhythm of Life, but many of us have no idea what the various approaches and forms of prayer in Christianity actually are.  This day continues a tradition in Moot, where Julie Dunstan, a friend of the Moot Community, Spiritual Director and Ignatian Spirituality Trainer, takes a day enabling participants to tryout and experience different forms of prayer.  Past attenders of this day of raved about it, as an opportunity to explore prayer with someone who knows what they are talking about.  For more information and to book places, please click here

At Christmas time this year, I had the good fortune to be able to catch up with family on boxing day. As part of this I went with My Uncle Geoff, Geoff Plant which some of you mooters know, to see his art studio and some of recent paintings.  His Art Studio is based on an estate previously where Eric Gill lived, who was an artist, sculpture and design person, who was responsible for some of the art and Lady Chapel at St Matthews Westminster, the first home of the Moot Community.

Whilst we were there, my Uncle expressed his frustration with some of his art.  He knew he could draw people, but wanted to get beyond the construction and technical bits of art, to be able to express the essence by getting beyond his own limitations.  It struck me that this is the same process as meditation and prayer, about getting beyond the self by using some form of method of prayer and meditation, to be able to reach beyond yourself to be able to encounter the essence which is God.

When I did my MA, one of the courses I completed was on art, literature and a theology of the imagination.  This basically traced the theme of creativity and imagination as the sphere for encountering the Holy Spirit, as the medium when the human and the divine encounter in the I-Thou relationship – whether this was intentional or not.  I have always seen prayer and meditation as an expression of this, as it requires you to get beyond your thinking and your feeling to be able to see beyond the self.   I have never thought that art and the process of making art, as a similar process.

So my Uncle and I could appreciate my comment that art then, seeking the essence outside of our self-preoccupation and self-deceptions, is like prayer and meditation, seeking to reach beyond, to seek the essence.    Prayer is hard work, just as art is hard work, but both are an essential expression of the spiritual path of seeking to reach out to the essence beyond, seeking the divine.

A Moot friend Mike Angell gave me the heads up on this article. I really like the focus here on all of us mooters being spiritual questers, where we are questing with existential questions, where these questions relate to spiritual and religious experience rather than the answer. Click here for the article.

The main thing I like about questing, is that it is a form of spirituality where you are going deeper with who you are.  One frustration I have with some friends is that they see spirituality as a form of  ’reinventing yourself’ – a consumptive identity – that you just take down from the shelf – one day materialistic the next anti-materialistic, one day prayerful and the next no such thing as prayer, or wanting community but then shunning or keeping away from participation.

What this article echoes for me – is that the spiritual path is one where we don’t reinvent ourselves, rather we go deeper with actually who we are, we seek the essence of what life is, facing ourselves God by living with the questions.  This path has for me three loci – hearing God as an inner voice from within through prayer, meditation and reflection, hearing God through participation in community through the wisdom and pain of friends and fellow travellers, and hearing God through poetry, art and spiritual writing and scripture.

So for me being an authentic quester, is not about reinventing yourself through consumptive-surface-self-definitions as for me this gets very close to self-deception, but rather the need to face your pains, get involved in community and quest through the questions through getting your hands dirty and getting involved in life and not being a spectator who shuns away from participation.

I hope that I will be this type of contemplative CHristian – committed to contemplative-action, where both Christians and Spiritual Questers are hopefully journeying towards the love of God.

Christmas and Easter are the high points of the Christian liturgical calendar, which emphasise the two great truths and theology of the faith.  The incarnation emphasises God’s love and grace through what is called incarnational theology, (literally God coming in human form) and Easter as the call to repentance and belief in the life, death and resurrection of God which emphasises redemptive theology.

The idea of God coming as a baby is extremely difficult for us in the 21st century – it is not logical, it cannot be factual and it most definitely is not rational.  This is because Christianity cannot ultimately be learned as some form of propositional fact – it needs to be experienced to be true.  Only when we draw on what is called trans-rationality, experience of God, are we able to encounter paradox, through experience of encountering God.  Then the gift of GOd coming into the world is awe inspiring, because it has to be the ultimate expression of love.

You only have to see just how vulnerable newly born children are, to see what a risk God made in coming in human form. It is ultimately a mystery that emphasises God’s love for us.  Emmanuel literally means -the God with us.  It is this ‘with us’ that moves me every time I go to midnight mass at a local church in the dark, to the light and hope of the divine story of the coming of the Lord, of the Trinity and the beginning of the Kingdom of God on earth.

As with Lent, I hadn’t really considered Advent very much, growing up in a non-conformist, non-liturgical church.

This year, I’ve found myself learning a few things about advent, almost by accident.

Firstly, I saw a status update on Facebook from Canon Andrew White (“Vicar of Baghdad”) casually mentioning that advent wasn’t about preparing for Christmas, but for the coming again of the messiah. Maybe I’m a bit slow, but I’d never realised this before.

Then, on the day the teachers were striking, I was able to take the kids to a wonderful service at a local Anglican church (St Thomas’s, Telford Ave) called “Prayers & Bears”, aimed specifically for pre-school kids. It included a 1-sentence advent prayer, which we were given on a slip of paper.

Finally, I was preparing an afternoon service for advent, using the Godly Play materials which included the following:

“Purple is the colour of kings and queens. No one could wear purple in those days except royal people. Purple is a serious colour, and something serious is about to happen, A King is coming, but he is not the kind of king that people thought was coming…This King was a baby who was born in a barn.

The King who was coming is still coming. This is full of mystery. A mystery is hard to enter sometimes. That is why this time of Advent is so important. Sometimes people can walk right through a mystery and not even know it is there…We are all getting ready to enter the mystery of  Christmas, so let’s go with the prophets, the Holy Family, the shepherds, the angels, the Magi and all the rest to make the journey that was not just back then. It is also now.”

(see how profound a “kids’” service can be – come on Sunday afternoon for more, with carols thrown in!)

So, I decided that the chocolate advent calendar wasn’t enough any more. We now have a candle, stuck in a wine bottle with the prayer wrapped round it. Every morning, once the chocolate calendar is out of the way, I light the candle and the kids (aged 3 & 6) say the prayer:

Watching, waiting, help me to be ready for you Jesus. Amen