"... we still think of ourselves as mere humans trying desperately to become "spiritual," when the Christian revelation was precisely that you are already spiritual ("in God"), and your difficult but necessary task is to learn how to become human.'
-Richard Rohr, "The Naked Now" p 69.
-Richard Rohr, "The Naked Now" p 69.
Our Story and Values
Grounded in the spirit of ancient Celtic Monasticism, we are a present
witness to the monastic character of the Celtic experience of Jesus of Nazareth. We make no claims of being
a "traditional monastic community, even though we may borrow some outward
aspects and some spiritual aspects.
We are an intentional and inclusive network of adult companions, who are called to form a new monastic spirit, living in our own homes or with our families.
We are an intentional community of adults because we believe that for most people their 'second calling' into where the meaning of life is to found comes sometime in the early middle of life, when we wake up one morning to discover that how we 'measure' life has changed. What we have been doing for years, we begin to realize, simply does not fit us anymore. We have outgrown the young life that we thought would go on forever and have found within us a whole new person. Worse, we find ourselves lodged in a life we no longer find stimulating or satisfying or exciting. We are unfamiliar—even to ourselves. We find that we are living some kind of creeping death, sloughing off what fit us in the past, in the old life we thought we loved, and unable to find a new way to fit into our present.
The feelings that come with the realization are overwhelming. One part guilt, one part fear, they make us ill in soul. We know what we cannot admit. If we do not stay as we are, we will feel forever unfaithful. If we force ourselves to stay as we are, we will go to dust inside.
There is so much at stake now. So much life behind us has been invested in what we now find to be lifeless. And yet there is so much life left to live. How can we possibly live it like this? And where did we go wrong? What happened to our commitment to the life decision we made in an earlier life? And what is at the root of this shift of centeredness: a lack of the kind of personal responsibility that sees a thing through? Immaturity? A lack of focus? What?
And the usual answer is “none of the above.”
Assuming that tomorrow will be the same as today is poor preparation for living. It equips us only for disappointment or, more likely, for shock. To live well, to be mentally healthy, we must learn to realize that life is a work in process. For most of us, in the moanstic sense of sprirual exploring we come to this in our adult years.
So, as adults we are Inspired by all the great Celtic and other monastic founders, in particular those who founded Iona and Lindisfarne, such reformers as Benedict and Francis, to seek to witness to the world in a Monasticism that reflects today's spiritual needs and concerns.
We seek to balance prayer with ministering to all in need in the deserts of our cities and towns, as witnesses to the message of the dream of God for humanity as opened through the witness and message of Jesus of Nazareth. We do this through the practice of a compassionate presence.
So why are we endeavouring to connect in this way?
There may be many answers, but here we just want to float the following:
...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old, but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Extract from a letter to his brother Karl-Friedrick January 14, 1935
The God-who-is-with-us approach to mission is refreshingly simple for us. It requires us to live amongst the people in our communities, love them, share the good news of the kingdom both in action, in speech, in silence and then as people who are becoming more and more the disciples of the God of Jesus to form up indigenous communities of faith that reflect our specific context.
This requires no great resources or buildings, no slick marketing plans to ‘win souls’ and no highly talented people. In this mission the gatherings exist only to support, challenge and encourage one another as they live in mission rather than being seen as the place to bring people to.
We already have a worshipping/missional/seeking network of companions through a linking of fellow seekers, so we guess we are on our way. And from Acts 2:43-47...
Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
We're wondering if we again need to hear Bonhoeffer's prophetic words more pointedly in these end times for the institutional church like the clang of a piercing bell echoing along the corridor of time...waking us from our complacency. Is this a time, are there people willing to live a life that lacks compromise? ... Is it time to gather small 'wells' (no more than 6-8 people) around this?
For the most part the institutional church structure is not a feasible and sustainable option, especially in small towns...or smaller faith communities. Clergy salaries, building costs, in-house fighting, and assessments paid to denominational structures...means many are running at a deficit, or, the whole underlying function of a parish is what they can do to survive. We have long left these issues behind...
Perhaps too, the era in which we lived, where community broke down into a philosophy of every [man] for themselves...it was getting your piece of the pie before you were staring at an empty pie plate with nothing more than crumbs to pick at. Some of that did trickle and seep into the church like a leaky septic tank...there was a shift from communal godly living and theology to one of individual spirituality... a gospel of prosperity.
As we at the Abbey think, particularly of our own journey as a family over the last few years, and of all of us, some of the things we have been highlighting are prone to threaten many of the mainstream church members. The challenge of being the Christian in the post-modern world is the challenge to break out of the ways where we are sometimes tied down by the traditional way of doing things. Not to disparage those traditions, for in and of themselves they are good: but to say, let us not thereby domesticate God believing that somehow our ‘small-picture god’ is anything like the big- picture God of Jesus. We often say it is unwise to become too close to any religion - it is not good for your health!!
Now this is dangerous stuff. Is the Spirit calling us out right now to do something significantly different? To take risks? We believe so. That’s a hard word to hear in many ways, and to pick up what many commentators are saying, that the mainstream Churches at this point in their histories, are being pruned back. The image of the vine keeper pruning back the vine is a painful image. The process of being pruned back is not comfortable. But it is done so we might come through to a new place where new fruit is born. Are we there? That is a hard place to be...
We can feel very inadequate and perhaps threatened by that. That is a great danger - the sense of risk to re-discover something far more simple can become too much; the sense of challenge can become a bit overwhelming. In a moment like this we might actually withdraw back into that domesticated version of what it means to be Christian and lose the call of the Spirit to go out and permit the Holy Spirit to be the wind within our sails!.
So, this is where we now begin as our cells of three to eight. 'Two or three gathered in his name' who are connected intentionally to many far wide who search through similar questions as ourselves, and through connections of the heart, which transcend time and distance. We are endeavouring to focus on a Spirit filled group of companions living in the reality of Jesus, this lush branch embedded, nurtured and fed by the vine...bearing fruit to bless the world.
Jesus prays in John 17:20-23 for such a network of companions..." so they will be as unified and together as we are...I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence. That you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me."
So are there people out there foolish enough, radical enough to enter into a new kind of discipleship, not really new just the old earlier way come back to challenge and affirm us, where we enter into a wisdom, where the foolish confound the wise; where the captives have been set free; where because of the experience of the cross...God’s people have ascended on high...and now this God of Jesus now pour outs spiritual gifts on everyone.
Where He has spread a table, a feast, and beckons us to come, calling us friends...participants in a Kingdom. We are the all part of a Royal Priesthood...apostles, pastors, teachers, intercessors, healers, prophets, servants, and evangelists...a place where Love casts out all fear.
The apostle to the new world, Paul of Tarsus exhorts us, that we have been given every spiritual gift in the heavenly places. This is not waiting till Christmas, it isn't waiting till we die to receive our inheritance...It's NOW...it's yours and it’s ours – and in this you are more than welcome to share in the adventure…
We are an intentional and inclusive network of adult companions, who are called to form a new monastic spirit, living in our own homes or with our families.
We are an intentional community of adults because we believe that for most people their 'second calling' into where the meaning of life is to found comes sometime in the early middle of life, when we wake up one morning to discover that how we 'measure' life has changed. What we have been doing for years, we begin to realize, simply does not fit us anymore. We have outgrown the young life that we thought would go on forever and have found within us a whole new person. Worse, we find ourselves lodged in a life we no longer find stimulating or satisfying or exciting. We are unfamiliar—even to ourselves. We find that we are living some kind of creeping death, sloughing off what fit us in the past, in the old life we thought we loved, and unable to find a new way to fit into our present.
The feelings that come with the realization are overwhelming. One part guilt, one part fear, they make us ill in soul. We know what we cannot admit. If we do not stay as we are, we will feel forever unfaithful. If we force ourselves to stay as we are, we will go to dust inside.
There is so much at stake now. So much life behind us has been invested in what we now find to be lifeless. And yet there is so much life left to live. How can we possibly live it like this? And where did we go wrong? What happened to our commitment to the life decision we made in an earlier life? And what is at the root of this shift of centeredness: a lack of the kind of personal responsibility that sees a thing through? Immaturity? A lack of focus? What?
And the usual answer is “none of the above.”
Assuming that tomorrow will be the same as today is poor preparation for living. It equips us only for disappointment or, more likely, for shock. To live well, to be mentally healthy, we must learn to realize that life is a work in process. For most of us, in the moanstic sense of sprirual exploring we come to this in our adult years.
So, as adults we are Inspired by all the great Celtic and other monastic founders, in particular those who founded Iona and Lindisfarne, such reformers as Benedict and Francis, to seek to witness to the world in a Monasticism that reflects today's spiritual needs and concerns.
We seek to balance prayer with ministering to all in need in the deserts of our cities and towns, as witnesses to the message of the dream of God for humanity as opened through the witness and message of Jesus of Nazareth. We do this through the practice of a compassionate presence.
So why are we endeavouring to connect in this way?
There may be many answers, but here we just want to float the following:
- perhaps because our society needs to see a, simpler alternative way of life....
- perhaps because the mainstream churches need to see a simpler alternative way of Christian life....smaller, poorer, non-clerical yet real...
- perhaps because the pursuit of wealth, social status and pleasure which are the current social values, need to be counter balanced... gently -yet with strength.
...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old, but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Extract from a letter to his brother Karl-Friedrick January 14, 1935
The God-who-is-with-us approach to mission is refreshingly simple for us. It requires us to live amongst the people in our communities, love them, share the good news of the kingdom both in action, in speech, in silence and then as people who are becoming more and more the disciples of the God of Jesus to form up indigenous communities of faith that reflect our specific context.
This requires no great resources or buildings, no slick marketing plans to ‘win souls’ and no highly talented people. In this mission the gatherings exist only to support, challenge and encourage one another as they live in mission rather than being seen as the place to bring people to.
We already have a worshipping/missional/seeking network of companions through a linking of fellow seekers, so we guess we are on our way. And from Acts 2:43-47...
Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.
We're wondering if we again need to hear Bonhoeffer's prophetic words more pointedly in these end times for the institutional church like the clang of a piercing bell echoing along the corridor of time...waking us from our complacency. Is this a time, are there people willing to live a life that lacks compromise? ... Is it time to gather small 'wells' (no more than 6-8 people) around this?
For the most part the institutional church structure is not a feasible and sustainable option, especially in small towns...or smaller faith communities. Clergy salaries, building costs, in-house fighting, and assessments paid to denominational structures...means many are running at a deficit, or, the whole underlying function of a parish is what they can do to survive. We have long left these issues behind...
Perhaps too, the era in which we lived, where community broke down into a philosophy of every [man] for themselves...it was getting your piece of the pie before you were staring at an empty pie plate with nothing more than crumbs to pick at. Some of that did trickle and seep into the church like a leaky septic tank...there was a shift from communal godly living and theology to one of individual spirituality... a gospel of prosperity.
As we at the Abbey think, particularly of our own journey as a family over the last few years, and of all of us, some of the things we have been highlighting are prone to threaten many of the mainstream church members. The challenge of being the Christian in the post-modern world is the challenge to break out of the ways where we are sometimes tied down by the traditional way of doing things. Not to disparage those traditions, for in and of themselves they are good: but to say, let us not thereby domesticate God believing that somehow our ‘small-picture god’ is anything like the big- picture God of Jesus. We often say it is unwise to become too close to any religion - it is not good for your health!!
Now this is dangerous stuff. Is the Spirit calling us out right now to do something significantly different? To take risks? We believe so. That’s a hard word to hear in many ways, and to pick up what many commentators are saying, that the mainstream Churches at this point in their histories, are being pruned back. The image of the vine keeper pruning back the vine is a painful image. The process of being pruned back is not comfortable. But it is done so we might come through to a new place where new fruit is born. Are we there? That is a hard place to be...
We can feel very inadequate and perhaps threatened by that. That is a great danger - the sense of risk to re-discover something far more simple can become too much; the sense of challenge can become a bit overwhelming. In a moment like this we might actually withdraw back into that domesticated version of what it means to be Christian and lose the call of the Spirit to go out and permit the Holy Spirit to be the wind within our sails!.
So, this is where we now begin as our cells of three to eight. 'Two or three gathered in his name' who are connected intentionally to many far wide who search through similar questions as ourselves, and through connections of the heart, which transcend time and distance. We are endeavouring to focus on a Spirit filled group of companions living in the reality of Jesus, this lush branch embedded, nurtured and fed by the vine...bearing fruit to bless the world.
Jesus prays in John 17:20-23 for such a network of companions..." so they will be as unified and together as we are...I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence. That you've sent me and loved them in the same way you've loved me."
So are there people out there foolish enough, radical enough to enter into a new kind of discipleship, not really new just the old earlier way come back to challenge and affirm us, where we enter into a wisdom, where the foolish confound the wise; where the captives have been set free; where because of the experience of the cross...God’s people have ascended on high...and now this God of Jesus now pour outs spiritual gifts on everyone.
Where He has spread a table, a feast, and beckons us to come, calling us friends...participants in a Kingdom. We are the all part of a Royal Priesthood...apostles, pastors, teachers, intercessors, healers, prophets, servants, and evangelists...a place where Love casts out all fear.
The apostle to the new world, Paul of Tarsus exhorts us, that we have been given every spiritual gift in the heavenly places. This is not waiting till Christmas, it isn't waiting till we die to receive our inheritance...It's NOW...it's yours and it’s ours – and in this you are more than welcome to share in the adventure…
