kingdom praxis | a.k.a. eliacín’s blog

the longhaul life of the community

Posted on | March 20, 2007 |

the longhaul life of the community

via Alan Creech

So, this is what I mean by the longhaul life of the community. We cannot live as communities of faith who are dependent on the newest, coolest thing that comes down the pike. We can’t sustain a transformative life together by merely “hanging out” - doing whatever, whenever, wherever. It has no skeleton. It eventually falls to the ground. Liturgy (and at least to some significant degree I mean the liturgy that is old, which has been lived in since the Church began) is our stable skeletal structure. It is a compass. It acts as a rudder in a vast, open ecclesiastical ocean. It is a pattern of one step after another, together, toward a common goal. It will get boring. It will seem repetitive and sometimes dry to many. And it will form you, straighten your crooked limbs. It will act, spiritually, like physical therapy does for the body. Longhaul. Steady.

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Category: Community, Contemplative, Religion, Spirituality, anglo-catholic, blogger, blogs, emerging church, liturgy, new monasticism

Comments

One Response to “the longhaul life of the community”

  1. Steve Hayes
    March 30th, 2007 @ 11:18 pm

    Exactly!

    It would be good if those who are talking about a “new monasticism” were to look at the history of various other attempts at starting a new monasticism over the last 50-100 years and see where they ended up.

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