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In a previous podcast, Jonny Spoor of the Moot Community talked to Ian Mobsby about his experience of participating and living in the L’arche community in France. He went there for his summer holiday from studying.  Here he lived in a house with Jean Vanier and loved and served in L’arche, possibly one of the most important new monastic inspired communities in the world.  Jonny recently went back to interview Jean Vanier about his experiences, theology and thinking to write an article for the Student Christian Movement magazine, and whilst he was there, he recorded some of the wisdom of the conversation.  So this podcast is more unusual than the ones we usually do, in that it pulls together Jean Vanier’s thinking where you can’t hear the questions Jonny has asked.  It however, allows the listener to engage with the remarkable wisdom of this important visionary and activist.  For those in the emerging church, fresh expressions and new monasticism, there is much here to aid us in our quest to build ecclesial communities out of contextual mission.

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Following a recent number of requests, we publish a short film played at the Moot Rhythm of Life Service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Easter Saturday 2009.  The film uses the stories and hopes of a number of people involved in the Moot Community, as we await the birthing of our vision of starting an arts cafe lounge in central London as a place for radical mission and hospitality, and our longer term hope of launching an intentional community.  The Moot Community recommits to its rhythm of life as a new monastic community before the Bishop of London in the season of Easter every year. This follows the ancient practice of christian priests, monastics and friars to recommit to their vows and for the whole people of God to recommit to their baptismal covenant.

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In the Little Service of January 2010, at the end of a resource training day, Ian Mobsby and Elizabeth Mowbray explored the theme of breathing as prayer, with a view of the ecclesial community as a new monastic community.  Life then becomes a pattern of breathing in God’s blessing and breathing out loving service and action.  This homily was inspired by the words of Andy Freeman, a founding member of the 24-7 Boiler Room New Monastic Communities.

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Ian Mobsby discusses with Shane Claiborne, the vision of New Monasticism, and the practical implications of living this particular form of ecclesial community, and the calling to a radical lifestyle. Shane is one of the leading voices in a growing movement of New Monasticism in the United States.

His first book, The Irresistable Revolution is a key envisioning texts for all those interested or involved in New Monasticism. It has been a core text for many involved in New Monasticism in the UK and Europe. In this book Shane outlines his experiences of working as a volunteer in Calcutta in India, in a community overseen by Mother Teressa, and how this opened up a whole way of being Christian that up to that point, he had been unaware of. Shane is a founding Member of the Simple Way Community in Philedelphia, one of the early new-monastic communities.

Be prepared to be inspired! Lets keep up with Shane’s visit to Iraq in January 2010, and hopefully we may even have him a long to a moot event in the not too distant future.

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On this the third Sunday of Advent December 2009, Ian Mobsby explores the importance of God coming as an ordinary human being.

The problem with Christianity is that it forgets too easily Christ the human being, preferring God the superbeing. The reality of the Incarnation is that there is a lot more to God the Redeemer than the Holy Rescue Effort. God coming as a human being is the fulfilment of all creation, and an incredible gift of love to humanity.

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As we approach advent, Ian Mobsby explores the context of God’s presence in the midst of binge spending on presents.

Part of disappointment with this time of year, is that we sense within ourselves that merely exchanging presents with each other doesn’t really honour the birth of the incarnation of God.

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In this podcast, Ian Mobsby interviews Fr Martin Newell, who is a member of the Catholic Worker movement in the UK, and Trident Ploughshares, which seek to challenge the use of weapons of mass destruction and the arms trade by protest and direct action.  Martin is a Roman Catholic Priest, and has gone to prison for his involvement in this radical approach to the Christian life. In this interview Martin shares his thoughts about a radical approach to Christian discipleship focused on justice, resistance and a focus on the poor.  The Catholic Worker movement has much in common with new monasticism in seeking to build a new society and the importance of community living out shared values through a rhythm of life.  Most interesting, was Martin’s thoughts of seeing Prison as a New Monastry as a consequnce of living out this form of discipleship.  Martin and the Catholic Worker movement are a real inspiration and hope!

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In the Moot Alt Eucharist on the 11th October 2009, Jemma Allen explores friendship as the sacramental outpouring of God’s love. Jemma reflects on the key Gospel phrase ‘I have called you friends…’ with a God who identifies friendship with sinners and drunkards.  So it is through friendship that God’s purposes are outworked, transforming all things back into restored relationship with God.  Therefore, friendship lies at the heart of the Christian life, that changes us and draws us into closer relationships with the divine.  Loving our neighbours and our God.  Friendship is the antedote to the structures of dominance and individualism that stand in opposition to  the justice, peace and liberation that we proclaim when we confess a faith in Christ.  Jemma is Chaplain at Waikato University and the Ex-ile Alternative Worship Community in Hamilton, North Island New Zealand.

Friendship is not some gimmick that we can market as a way of successfully living a Christian life.  It is not even primarily about about an act of will or making friendships in a calculating way.  Friendship as a spiritual practice, as the mark of a disciple, as a proclamation of the Good News of the Reign of God  – this friendship is about entering into authentic relationships, relationships of vulnerability and trust, relationships of mutuality and care.  In allowing ourselves to be affected by who we live with and how we live with them, by the gifts we receive in and from our friends, we open ourselves to being transformed by love and so enlarging the realm of God: the kinship and new community proclaimed by Christ.  That, my friends, would be Good News!

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In this podcast Ian Mobsby interviews Abbot Stuart Burns OSB, of the Burford Anglican Benedictine Community,     to explore the significance of New Monasticism and Emerging/Fresh Expressions of church.  Abbot Stuart was wise and insightful, and a joy to interview, and shares his hopes about how New Monasticism may enrich the church as it seeks to recontextualise into our current post-secular culture of the spiritual seeker.

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Ian Mobsby of the Moot Community, explores the theme of shifting from nomadic journey to settlement in the Compline Service on 9th August 2009.  As Moot explores the next phase of its development, Ian explores the challenges that faced the Israelites as they shifted from wandering in the desert to settling in the promised land.  Rather than this being an easy task, it became an impossible task, even harder than being nomads.  So Ian explores the implications for Moot, as it seeks a permenant home in the City of London for its work.

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In this podcast, Ian Mobsby explores the implications of Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 and John 14: 15-21.  As Moot is part of the emerging and fresh expressions of church movements, it is founded on the vision of building ecclesial communities out of contextual mission.  It is within this vision of being a follower of Christ and seeking to be part of a radical community, that we need to consider the issues of personal identity and issues of taboo.  In the Ecclesiastes text, we are challenged by the need of an identity centred on God, where our lives are often hard and relatively short.  The second text again returns to the idea of building ecclesial communities out of contextual mission, where the mission in question was to a hated people, the Samaritans, and a hated woman who was possibly a prostitute.  Jesus in this text breaks many religious and social taboos by even talking to the woman at the well and to the local people.  So this text allows us to see on the one hand the importance of a faith and our identity to be in God in an I-God relationship, but further, we are called to challenge those who put obsticles in the way of people knowing God, particularly where social taboos are concerned.  So this text has much to say to the modern church, and the importance of God’s love mission to the world.

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In the Alt Eucharist Service on Sunday 14th June, Ian Mobsby explored the theme of the abundance of the Kingdom of God and the scarcity of this world. This followed a very moving service last week where the community supported a couple recovering from a failed pregnancy. This podcast explored how Christians can go deeper in the faith which is a call to powerlessness, pain and struggle alongside the desire for peace and love.

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May 2009 saw the launch of the new book, Ancient Faith Future Mission: fresh expressions in the sacramental tradition [Link in Uk] [Link in USA]. At the London book launch, Stephen Cottrell the Anglican Bishop of Reading, and Richard Giles the former Dean of Philidelphia Cathedral both gave short addresses on the issue of fresh expressions and mission in the catholic tradition.  This was followed by a panel discussion with practitioners Michael Volland (Gloucester Cathedral), Sue Wallace (Visions York), Tessa Holland (Contemplative Fire Chichester), Philip Roderick (Contemplative Fire Oxford), Carl Turner (Precentor Exeter Cathedral), Simon Rundell (Blessed Gosport), Ian Mobsby (Moot London).

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On Holy Saturday April 11th 2009, the Moot Community led by Bishop Richard, the Bishop of London, recommited to the community’s Rhythm of Life in the Faith Chapel in the Crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.  In this homily Bishop Richard explores the issue of being Church in the 21st Century in uncertain times.

We will soon be putting information on this Rhythm of Life Service on the Mootblog with a film and images.

To see more information on Moot’s Rhythm, see the link on the right hand tool bar on the Mootblog.

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Clare Catford, broadcaster, writer and member of the moot community, explores the theme of balance in the Moot Alt Eucharist on Sun 15th March 2009 on the third sunday in the season of Lent.  Clare explores the theme in the context of her own life experience, particularly the challenge of facing and living with depression.

The Moot Rhythm of Life Specifices Balance as:

We aspire to live with integrity in the City, striving as a community for balance between work, rest and play.  We wish to develop healthy spiritual disciplines such as daily prayer, meditation and contemplation, drawing on the ancient Christian paths.  We want to live within our means, living sustainable lives. We desire to not be simply consumers, but people committed to giving and receiving in all of life.

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On Sunday 15th March 2009, Ian Mobsby of the Moot Community joined a recorded discussion in Sydney exploring the above title on Australia’s ABC National Radio. In the discussions, the group explored the importance of Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church engagement with our increasingly post-christian post-secular culture.  For a link to the radio show click here

As usual, if you would like to comment on this podcast discussion, please do so on the Mootblog

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In this podcast, Clare Catford with the assistance of Aaron Kennedy interviews Richard Chartres the Bishop of London, exploring the theme of a Christian spirituality in the City.

In a time of global economic depression, Bishop Richard challenges the Church to practice a radical form of love and a practical form of spirituality. This podcast was recorded in the second week of Lent 2009, as part of the Moot Podcast Big Questions Series.

The Moot Community will soon stand before the Bishop of London on Easter Saturday, to affirm to its Rhythm of Life.

If you would like to comment on this or any other of the Moot podcasts, please do so on the moot blog site.

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In this podcast of Moot’s Little Service in February 2009, Ian Mobsby explores why accountability is so important in the areas of justice, love and spirituality. In the service, people explored their perceived accountability to God, to themselves, and to others.

At this time, the Moot Community is exploring its ‘new monastic’ elements of its Rhythm of Life, to dig deep, in preparation for the community to recommit to these vows on Easter Saturday 2009, in the Crypt of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral.

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For Moot’s February Alt Eucharist, we were joined by Travis & Brandy, Lutheran Ordinands, to explore Moot’s rhythm of life element concerning accountability. In the service, we explored how we are called to be true to God, true to yourself and true to others, following the monastic traditions. Instead of a homily, David from Moot interviews Brandy & Travis, exploring their take on accountability.

We desire to be accountable to one another, to grow and journey together, listening to each other for wisdom rather than just trusting ourselves. We want to have a willingness to share life, rather than to privatize it and we seek to walk together in a deep way rather than as strangers who only know the surface of each other.

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Doerthe Rosenow, a member of the Moot Community explores the importance of Hospitality in new forms of church. She challenges the default position of consumption - a cultural norm, and the call for Christians to be counter cultural in seeking to get beyond individualism and me-isms. She draws on Moot’s Rhythm of Life Section on Hospitality:

hospitality We wish to welcome all who we come across, when we are gathered and when we are dispersed, extending Christ’s gracious invitation to relationship, meaning and life in all its fullness through our deeds, words and thoughts.

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This podcast kicks off the new year with the homily from the Moot Little Service led by Raewyn and Peter Thomas, both members of the Community on 4th January 2009, on the theme of epiphany.

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This year more than ever, the times don’t seem to fit with the traditional pattern of Christmas. Yet into this complex season, Christmas does enter once the schools have broken up, the office parties have ended, and work slows we are left with this uncomfortable pause when we remember that we are human. This reflection seeks to reflect on the significance of the birth of God in human form for us today.

‘Look, Mary shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’

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In this alternative eucharist on the third sunday of advent, Ian Mobsby and the moot community explore the example of mary regarding discipleship, call waiting, the expectation of the Incarnation and the birthing of the Kingdom of God. The podcast begins with a reflection on the Song of Mary recorded in the Gospel of Luke:

My soul proclaims to the greatness of the Lord My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour For he has brought favour on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed, The Almighty has done great things, and Holy is God’s name.

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In this Moot Community podcast, Aaron Kennedy chats with Dr. Sally Alsford, a lecturer in theology at the University of Greenwich, and graduate of London Bible College, and Durham University. Yoga, the nature of belief, the climate change crisis, evangelical Christianity and the election of Barack Obama are some of the topics that get covered.

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Drawing on the famous text in Matthew, Ian Mobsby (drawing on the writings of N.T.Wright) explores the implications of Jesus’ call to give to Caesar what is Ceasar’s, and to give to God what is God’s. For the last 500 years, there has been a divide between the sacred and the secular. However, recently, we have redescovered that not only is this wrong, but it is a myth. The truth as this text says, is that we find the sacred in the secular. Hence why Jesus acted and did what he did, with an incarnational sense of vocation. The change then for us is explore what this dual Citizenship means practically

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Ian Mobsby explores this months theme of the Moot Community, exploring why the Christian tradition venerates Saints. Rather than these people being towering figures of strength, many were pretty ordinary people striving for faith and spirituality in a somewhat difficult world.  What is it about these ordinary but complex radicals and mystics that makes them saints? And what can they teach us about strength from our weaknesses? How do our wounds become the basis for hope, love and action?

2 Corinthians 4 For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ… But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

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Tom Sine international author, researcher and speaker, led a homily and discussion in the Moot Evening Alt Compline service tonight. He explored the implications of the current global economic slowdown and its affects on the poor, and for those under 40 who are attempting to make their way in life.  In particular he explored the depressing realities around house ownership, and the issue of sustainability.  The housing model of the nucleur family is just not sustainable or possible anymore.  Increasingly Christians need to explore another way, or rather re-imagine community and intentional community as the outworking of reduced carbon foot print and the sharing of resources.  There’s a lot in here, so enjoy.  This is part one of two podcasts recorded this evening.

For information on the book, or to place an order, click here

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Tom Sine international author, researcher and speaker, led a homily and discussion in the Moot Evening Alt Compline service tonight. He explored the implications of the current global economic slowdown and its affects on the poor, and for those under 40 who are attempting to make their way in life.  In particular he explored the depressing realities around house ownership, and the issue of sustainability.  The housing model of the nucleur family is just not sustainable or possible anymore.  Increasingly Christians need to explore another way, or rather re-imagine community and intentional community as the outworking of reduced carbon foot print and the sharing of resources.  There’s a lot in here, so enjoy.  This is part two of two podcasts recorded this evening.

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Today’s Big Questions Interview explores the experiences of Jonny Spoor, in his time at the L’arche Community in Trosly-Breuil, an hour outside of Paris.  In an interview with Ian Mobsby, Jonny explores the spirituality that lies behind the work of L’arche, and how it has impacted his belief and life as a participant in two Emerging/Fresh Expressions of Church in London and York.  Jonny helps us to face some of the issues concerning being human in the 21st century.

L’Arche is based firmly on Christian roots. We try to help all our members to develop their own spiritual life. In a divided world, L’Arche aims to be a sign of hope and unity. We are Communities of faith in the Christian tradition. We welcome people of all faiths or none. Whatever people believe about God we welcome and respect them. People in our Communities come from different cultures, countries, religious groups and faiths. Everyone is encouraged to deepen their faith, following their own traditions. Some L’Arche members belong to particular churches. We encourage them to attend their local places of worship. Each Community invites people come together to pray and celebrate if they wish. Local priests and ministers often help us to shape and guide our worship. Members with learning disabilities sometimes have special needs when it comes to worship. We try to help them feel fully involved and experience God for themselves. Some of them may not easily understand words. We use music, gesture and mime in prayers and services.

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Peter Rundell of the Moot Community, explores the place of God in the complexity of our lives, where our lives are a form of journey.  Peter draws on personal experience to explore where God has been present in his life, sometimes, when he did not know it until later. This homily was recorded at a Moot Alt Eucharist on Sunday 14th Sept 08.

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In his book, The Becoming of G-d (YTC Press, 2008), Ian Mobsby explores how some emerging churches have reappropriated an ancient Trinitarian understanding of the faith as a model for church and spirituality in the C21st. Can a renewed understanding of the Trinity help us be and do church - and help us in the task of our own human becoming. To listen to a preview, click below.  To purchase the full thing from Greenbelt, click here

The MP3 is available for purchase.  For info on the book , ciick here

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Mark McCleary completes a report exploring Church of the Apostles, (Sister Church to Moot) as an example of Anglimergent New Monasticism.  This podcast explores what this is about, including interviews with Karen Ward, Ian Mobsby and other members of Church of the Apostles.  For more information on New Monasticism, see info on the subgroup on Anglimergent here

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Clare Catford, broadcaster, writer, theologian and member of the the Moot Community in London, explores the title ‘affluenza: how to get beyond consuming to try and fill your empty soul’.  Addiction is a very real issue in our contemporary culture, and one that needs careful thought and consideration from spiritual perspective. Clare draws on her own experience in dialogue with a number of scriptures from the Bible to explore this issue with some depth.  This homily is a re-recording of a homily given by Clare at a Moot alt.eucharist service in June 2008. The Moot Community read together the book ‘Affluenza’ by Oliver James.  Clare Catford has written a book entitled ‘addicted to love’  exploring the issue of addiction from a personal and spiritual perspective.  Clare will be speaking about her book and her experiences with addiction at this year’s Greenbelt Festival in August 2008.

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On the event of the first adult baptism in the Moot Community, Dorethe Rosenow gave a homily in our alt. eucharist service exploring the issue of baptism, being community drawing on the Trinity, faith, original blessing and nurting nature.  Dorethe draws on the experience of her family to explore these important issues.

In baptism it is God who names us in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Companion.  It is God who initiates the relationship as a sign of original blessing, but where we as adults can make a choice whether to live in this gift.

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In a new form of podcasting at Moot, Aaron Kennedy leads a new programme of interviews with a number of interesting and influential people involved at the interface between spirituality, politics, religion and contemporary culture. The first of these interviews kicks off with Ian Mobsby author, pastor and ordained priest, to explore why the Trinity is becoming an important basis for new forms of church seeking new/ancient forms of worship, mission and community in the 21st century.

For more information on the book, or to order a copy internationally please do click here. This interview explores how God modelled in Trinitarian persons inspires us to be an authentic Christian Spiritual community of persons, seeking to dig deep in culture that usually lives at the surface of things. All proceeds from book sales are ploughed back into the work of the Moot Community. Watch for Aaron’s next interview.

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Ian Mobsby, at Grace Cathedral San Francisco addresses the Contemplative Eucharist congregration on his US & Canadian Tour promoting the book the becoming of G-d. Ian explores Matthew 10:24-39, to re-explore the radicalness of the Christian faith and why it was such a threat to the Roman Empire in the early church period. Ian then explores the implications of this for being contemporary ordinary Christian radicals and the vision of the emerging/fresh expressions of church.  This homily was part of an alternative congregation at Grace Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of California (Bay Area).

As God expresses identity in the Trinity, the Becoming of G-d, so we are called to follow God and find identity in being Christian Community, where we become Human Becomings as the visible body of Christ.  If we live there, then we can catch up with what God is doing to bring hope, justice and belonging to the world.

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Ian Mobsby, one of the founding members of Moot, explores the issue of risk, ‘the body of Christ’, God the Holy Spirit, or more metaphorically God the Sustainer & Challenger. This God unsettles things, stirred things up, encouraged people to move on, to attempt to catch up with what God the Trinity was doing.  In this homily Ian quotes the words of Metropolitan Anthony of the Russian Orthodox Church in his book “The Living Body of Christ”

The Church is not just the Eucharistic community, but is an extension of the incarnation; it encompasses all matter, all creation, all of humanity where the Holy Spirit is at work… There is a difference between tradition and traditionalism, as the outworking of the Holy Spirit through risk since Pentecost.  Tradition is life-giving where traditionalism fossilises and kills.  Many churches steeped in traditionalism have become liturgical ghettos.  The true nature of the Church since Pentecost, is to be outward-looking, open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and willing to take risks: it should be a missionary community.  A Community of Servants full of love”.

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Gareth Powell gave this homily at the Moot Communities alternative Eucharist on Pentecost Sunday on 11th May 2008.  Gareth was formally part of the leading group of the Moot Community, and now completing a PhD as part of training to be an Ordained Pioneer Priest in the Church of England, through Westcott House, Cambridge.  In this homily, Gareth explores a biblical perspective concerning work, and then reflects on the more unhealthier sides of attitudes to work in contemporary culture.  Making reference to Moot’s Rhythm of Life, Gareth explores the concept of work when answering the question “How should we live?”.  Gareth & his wife Phillipa continue to follow the Moot Rhythm in their new home of Cambridge.

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Ian Mobsby, one of the founders of the moot community explores the need for hope as the foundation of faith to live in the complex world of today. In this way, with a basis in the love of God, we can be a community of hope reflecting the vision of the Church gathered in a City in Revelation 22:

In the City of God there will be no more night. Just the glory of the risen One. He will write his name on our foreheads, and we will worship him forever. And it won’t be much longer now.

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Ian Mobsby of the Moot Community, explores the farewell discourse of Christ to the Disciples as recorded in John 14:1-14. In particular Ian explores the tension of the most inclusive statement in the New Testament “In the Father’s House there are many mansions or rooms” with the end statement from Jesus “No one comes to the Father except through me”. The truth of Christ, lies somewhere between these two statements, and was a gift not only to the early Church, but to all Christians in all time.

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Ian Mobsby, one of the co-founders of the Moot Community, explores the example of Thomas in the way of discipleship. In a world of increasing fanaticism, the place of faith and doubt as a mechanism that drives mature faith formation of the grey and not the ‘black and white’ is crucial to our journey of faith. Thomas enables us all to have hope that as we go through cycles of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction, that we are growing into out ‘human becomingness’

In fact Jesus even models this process in his own life of incarnation (birth, blessing, construction), testing & crucifixion (deconstruction) and resurrection (reconstruction). It is not an easy journey for us to follow. But it is not a journey where will not be tested and doubt.

Being a ‘back-slider’ is an authentic part of the journey. Those who don’t, are stuck in fundamentalism. The Emerging church, is inspiring us to live with an emerging faith.

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Sam Rowland of the Moot Community draws on his own personal spiritual journey, to explore the themes of wilderness to hope. In Easter, it is important to remember that we arrive at hope and centredness after a hard journey that can take us through brokenness and pain. It is our challenge to keep going as Christians in such times to then go on to find re-orientation of the self and community.

This homily was recorded in Easter after Sam led a Moot Community Small Service in Lent 2008.

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Ian Mobsby gives an address on the place of Good Friday in the passion of Holy Week. He explores how Good Friday can ever be considered good in salvation history. This was part of a traditional Anglican Good Friday Service, which begins with the ministers prostrating themselves on the floor before the altar as a dramatic sign of the cost of the Cross for Christ.

Good Friday. How is it possible, that on this day, when we remember Jesus the man and his painful walk from Jerusalem, carrying his cross to the hill of Golgotha. When we humanity killed the incarnation of God in human flesh. How can this Friday possibly be called Good? Good Friday?

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Phil Medley, one of the Pastoral Assistants at St Matthews, gave this considered and heart-felt address to the Moot Community in an alt.Eucharist service drawing on John’s gospel narrative of the raising of Lazarus. In it, Phil explores the importance of emotional intelligence - or being real, and following Christ as he was fully human and emotional. Phil challenges us follow this Jesus who does not hide from our emotions and the suffering of the world, but who beckons us to follow him to find liberation and love.

And Jesus was disturbed by the crying of Mary & Martha and the Jews that followed them … And Jesus wept … So Jesus stood before the tomb … And said … Lazarus come out … And said … loosen the bands that bind him.

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Ian Mobsby of the Moot Community, reflects on the connection between spiritual hunger and knowing God as part of a Lent Spirituality Course through the Moot ‘Beyond the Wilderness’ event in the SW1 Art Gallery in London.

There is a profound link between a spiritual thirst, prayer and encountering Christ today.

Mother Teresa put it well when after four hours at prayer, she said to a gathering of people:

“Jesus wants me to tell you again … how much is the love He has for each one of you–beyond all what you can imagine. Not only He loves you, even more–He longs for you. He misses you when you don’t come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don’t feel worthy. Why does Jesus say ‘I thirst’? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words– … ‘I thirst’ is something much deeper than just Jesus saying ‘I love you.’ Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you–you can’t begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who he wants you to be for him.”

This is the profound mystery about the nature of contemplative forms of prayer. That through the Holy Spirit, and the power of our imagination, we too can encounter Christ - today.

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Ian Mobsby led the reflection in Lent 2 looking at the issue of risk and and love in the context of contemporary culture. We reflected on a quote from Jean Vanier.

To the poverty of our human minds the possibility of a destiny conceived by God, and freedom, seem contradictory. Yet it is not so. For the wisdom of God and God’s respect for each person is so great, that a destiny of ultimate fulfilment, and individual freedom, are gently married, and the glory of God and of creation flows from this union. God has the secret of loving us to freedom, inviting us to share in the creativity of love. Because so many of us have experienced a love coming from parents – or others – that is stifling or crippling or possessive, it is difficult to believe we are loved by a love that brings us to freedom, and that God’s plan goes far beyond the wonder and beauty of the creation we know … Yes the deepest song of everything in creation reflects the unity of the Trinity: three persons poured out in love for one another.

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Nicholas Papadopulos of St Peter’s Eaton Square led the first reflection in the first week in Lent exploring the theme “Who can you trust?”. This is the first week of moot community arts lenten reflection called “beyond the wilderness”. The reflection ends on three questions for spiritual reflection

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Dorethe Rosenow of the Moot Community shares her reflections of Moot coming from a non-UK perspective. Dorethe explores the business of our lives and our disconnection from the planet and the seasons. Dorethe challenges us to stay with silence and forms of contemplation, for which the ancient prayer of ashing came: From dust you came and from dust you shall return. Turn from your sin and be faithful unto Christ

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This is the first of the podcasts of the homilies recorded at alt.eucharist services of the Moot Community in London. The first, by Ian Mobsby begins with a quote by the theologian called Volf, which challanges the emerging church to explore the need for a deep spirituality:

A participative model of the church requires more than just values and practices that correspond to participative institutions. The church is not first of all a realm of moral purposes; it is the anticipation, constituted by the presence of the Spirit of God, of the eschatological gathering of the entire people of God in communion with the triune God. Hence the church needs the vivifying presence of the Spirit, and without this presence, even a church with a decentralised participative structure and culture will become sterile, and perhaps more sterile even than a hierarchical church. For it will either have to operate with more subtle and open forms of coercion. Successful participative church life must be sustained by deep spirituality. Only the person who lives from the Spirit of communion (2 Cor. 13:13) can participate authentically in the life of the ecclesial community.

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