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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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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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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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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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