Lebanon focus

We are currently running an appeal for Christians in Lebanon who are responding to people in crisis all around them. Our partners are supporting people in need with emergency food packs, blankets, medicine and more, as well as providing trauma support and investing in long-term discipleship. Pray for people to turn to Jesus during this time and find comfort in him. For more fuel for prayer, please download and use our prayer resource and use this link (or turn to page 6 of CMS Magazine to find out more).

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Could you sit in a church pew next to someone who had robbed you? Could you worship alongside a member of a community that, for years, had been locked in a deadly conflict with yours?

In Turalei, northern South Sudan, a bustling town of around 100,000 people, a newly planted church is answering that question every week.

On Sunday mornings, the congregation is made up of both Dinka and Nuer believers. They come from opposite sides of an ongoing violent conflict but share the same service. Afterwards, children play together outside while the adults sit in the shade, eating together and talking.

A few years ago, people on both sides of the dispute would have called this impossible. So, how did it happen? Their explanation is clear: “God has done this.”

The border dispute

The conflict between the Dinka and Nuer communities in this border region began in 2017. While rooted in historical disputes over grazing lands and water sources – realities increasingly under pressure due to changing climate patterns – the tension has been compounded by local political and economic factors.

People from the Dinka and Nuer tribes could tell you many stories about how the long-standing conflict and years of cattle raiding has displaced families, disrupted trade and cost hundreds of lives.

One of the more recent incidents took place in late 2023, when under the cover of darkness, four young Dinka men crossed the border into Nuer territory. Local residents caught the young men in the act of attempting a cattle raid, and a skirmish broke out. Two of the Dinka men were killed. The remaining two fled, seeking refuge with Garang Turoah, a respected spiritual leader among the Nuer community. In line with Nuer tradition, Garang granted them sanctuary. Their lives were spared, but the Nuer community held them indefinitely, refusing to let them return home.

Finding common ground on disputed land

Paul Lueth, a local church planter and theology lecturer, knows the weight of this longstanding division firsthand. A Dinka from Turalei, Paul and his wife Regina Atany (both working with CMS) have lived through the ongoing instability of the border conflict. With no clear path to resolution, Paul and other Christian leaders on both sides recognised that if things were going to change, the two communities needed to start talking.

Paul worked with church leaders from both sides to host an initial meeting in early 2024, hoping a shared Christian faith could help the groups move towards reconciliation. Leaders from both tribes – including Garang Turoah – sat down together.

They started their gathering with prayer and worship, before launching into a discussion about how to peacefully share the disputed grazing land. They were surprised to find that their shared faith gave them common ground and helped them move forward. As one of them put it during that first meeting, “What is this Jesus, that we are able to speak to each other beyond tribes?”

Following this, the Nuer leaders made a formal gesture of reconciliation: they released the two young Dinka would-be cattle raiders they had been holding for several months.

Sustaining the peace

To build on this initial breakthrough, Paul, Regina and other local Christian leaders have spent the last two years running joint training sessions for both Dinka and Nuer believers.

Because traditional church buildings are scarce and often targeted for destruction during border raids, Paul has focused on training both Nuer and Dinka women to lead house churches. The teaching reinforces that the church is a community of people rather than a physical structure, transcending tribal identities.

At the same time, Regina Atany has been hosting savings and microfinance groups where people from both tribes sit side-by-side to learn and work together to build financial stability for their families. Regina also uses these gatherings to run a discipleship framework called Disciple-Making-Disciples, equipping women to share these peacebuilding tools across the border with neighbouring communities.

The ultimate result of this quiet, relational work is the new congregation in Turalei. What began in late 2025 as a small group of Dinka and Nuer pioneers has now grown into a steady, weekly community of over 450 people and counting, where former enemies are choosing to build a peaceful future together.

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In a modest neighbourhood in South Asia lived a young family: S and V and their two children. To many people, they looked like a happy family.

But this “happy” family was not happy at all. S and her husband V fought every day.

Beneath the surface of all the arguing lay a wound that had never been addressed: S had been unfaithful. Her affair had caused a kind of damage that couldn’t just be swept under the rug. But even so, S’s affair quietly continued. Much of the fighting happened in front of the children, and it was bad enough that the police were called almost every week. But no one could see a way out – this was a household in gridlock.

Finding new hope through new friends

Even though S and V couldn’t see a way forward, everything was about to change. They had a neighbour called Sister Nitu. Sister Nitu was a Christian and belonged to a church planted and led by Asia-CMS partners Deepak and Kareena. As well as sharing the gospel and building a Jesus-centred community, Deepak and Kareena support local families through an after-school education programme designed to help children improve their future prospects.

Sister Nitu had been praying for this family, and soon enough, she invited S to her church and began sharing the good news of Christ with her. S didn’t come every week at first, but the team at church were determined to support her and share God’s love with her. They sat with her in her home, opened the Scriptures with her, listened to her pain and prayed for her family. Her new friends didn’t share Jesus’ love with S as an abstract concept – she saw it and felt it in action.

Suddenly, V became very ill. People from Sister Nitu’s church visited him in hospital and he shared openly about the years of struggle, about the betrayal, about the weariness that had settled deep in his bones. As the team listened, V’s heart began to soften. As the team grew closer to both S and V, they began a careful process of counselling. They taught about the sanctity of marriage – how God designed it to be a covenant, not a contract. They unpacked the vows: what faithfulness truly means, to God and to each other. For S, much of this was entirely new. No one had ever explained the meaning of the promises she had made.

A big surprise

In the midst of this season of counselling and fragile hope, S became pregnant. This should have made her happy, but all she felt was despair. She had helped create a world of fighting, instability and shame. How could she bring a baby into all this? Surely she couldn’t keep this baby.

She confided in her new friends from church, who spoke gently about the sacred value of the life growing within her. They prayed. They wept with her. And by the grace of God, S decided to keep the baby.

Several months later, a healthy, bright-eyed baby boy was born. Today, he is an active toddler, always smiling, a living testimony that God can redeem any situation.

Starting something new on a solid foundation

Earlier this year, S and V took the most significant step of their lives together — they were baptised. Standing in the water as a couple, publicly declaring their faith in Jesus Christ, they buried their old life and started something new.

Today, their home is completely different – it is a place of peace. Their neighbours can see it, and are curious about what could have caused such a transformation.

S, who once spent her days in bitterness and strife, now lives a life of peace and takes her Bible to work with her every day. In her work as a nanny, she shares the gospel – not just with words, but through living a changed life. New people have come to church because of her testimony. V has found stability in his work, selling toys to provide for his family. Their two elder children attend Deepak and Kareena’s after-school programme, where they receive an education and the love of a caring community. And little Ashish – that smiling, energetic boy who almost wasn’t born – is a daily reminder of what God can do when a family surrenders to him.

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In a devastated Lebanon, our partners are reaching out to people who have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

In a school courtyard in Beirut, now serving as a temporary shelter, a staff member with Church Mission Society’s local partner, Together Network, was distributing freshly prepared meals to families who had recently arrived with nothing. Samia noticed an older woman sitting quietly with her children, having fled the heavy bombardments in the south of Lebanon just days earlier. When Samia handed her a simple sandwich, the woman’s face broke into an expression of such intense, tearful relief that it stayed with the team long after the crowds had thinned.

Reflecting on that encounter, Samia said: “I never expected to see someone so excited to receive a sandwich.”

That moment illustrates the daily reality across Lebanon today, where the basic certainties of human dignity – a safe room, a hot meal, a moment of security – have become rare treasures. Yet, in the middle of widespread devastation, local Christians are putting their faith into action. Though many have suffered great losses themselves, they are choosing to stand on the frontlines of relief, offering practical comfort and a steady, reassuring presence. Their efforts are leading many people to curiosity about Jesus.

Crisis upon crisis

The violence that erupted between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah in late February 2026 has shattered what little stability remained in the country. Intense airstrikes and sudden military operations have forced more than 1.4 million people – over a fifth of Lebanon’s population – to run for relative safety. Families are seeking shelter wherever space can be found: in overcrowded classrooms, church basements, temporary community centres; some have even been sleeping under highway bridges.

To understand the true weight of this moment, it is necessary to realise that this conflict did not hit a stable society. It collided with a nation already exhausted by a severe, ongoing economic collapse that began in 2019, which had already wiped out life savings, destroyed local livelihoods and left public infrastructure threadbare. Combined with the lingering trauma of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, ordinary families possessed little safety net left when the first bombs fell this spring.

Now, those who have been displaced face total uncertainty. Even during fragile, temporary ceasefires, the relief has been short-lived; many who attempt to return to check on their villages find only fields of rubble where their neighbourhoods used to be. The sense of loss is consuming, leaving people to live day by day. “We have no idea what tomorrow will bring,” people have said to CMS partners.

Between gratitude and grief

“We are living between gratitude and grief,” shared a member of the Together Network team, describing the collective psychological landscape. “Grateful to be alive, but grief because of the deep loss all around us.”

The psychological pressure on ordinary citizens has been relentless. The constant, ominous buzz of surveillance drones and the sudden wail of sirens have kept families in a state of perpetual anxiety. Ceasefires have at times reduced some of the immediate outward danger, but done little to ease the deep trauma carried inside.

Many of the Together Network team in Lebanon – who are believers from Muslim backgrounds and refugees who fled Syria – have lost their homes or loved ones too.

Yet, rather than paralysing their efforts, this heartbreak has focused the team’s sense of mission. They are working with an acute awareness of the uncertainty of tomorrow.

Knowing that any conversation could be their last opportunity to offer comfort, team members have become entirely dedicated to sharing the full message of God’s love and hope with those around them, refusing to let fear silence their witness.

This faithfulness was vivid in an account shared by team member Alia. She recently spent time sitting with a woman who had survived what locals call “Black Wednesday” – an intense Israeli airstrike that killed 20 of her immediate neighbours in a single instant.

The trauma and guilt of being the one left alive was a crushing weight. Instead of offering easy, superficial platitudes, Alia listened to her grief and gently shared the love and hope of Jesus.

A radical presence in a divided land

In Lebanon, though Christians are technically a minority (making up roughly 32–35 per cent of the population), Christianity is not a hidden faith. It is an integral part of the nation’s history, culture and infrastructure: Lebanon is home to numerous visible churches, schools and universities. Christians’ steady, loving witness is manifesting in remarkable ways across a complex and fractured social landscape.

The volume of displaced people has strained Lebanon’s delicate sectarian lines. In some areas, local communities and hotels have felt compelled to restrict who can enter temporary shelters, driven by security concerns that hosting certain groups might make civilian buildings a military target. At the same time, vulnerable populations, such as Syrian refugees, frequently face prejudice and isolation as they look for safety.

In stark contrast to these divisions, the local Christian community has modelled a deliberate choice to serve all people, regardless of their background, with radical compassion. Local churches and Christian institutions have opened their doors to host dozens of displaced families, providing warm rooms, safety and hot meals every day.

Pastor S, a local partner working with Syrian refugees, described how this crisis has deepened their ministry focus: “This kind of crisis pushed us to depend on God, to go out to the streets and share with the people, eye to eye.”

Long-term lifelines

To sustain this critical work, CMS has launched a Summer Appeal. The immediate goal is to provide vital practical relief to 1,000 displaced families, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 vulnerable individuals who have lost their homes or loved ones. This will take the form of:

• Food assistance parcels: essential staples such as rice, sugar, beans, pasta, cooking oil and milk, ensuring a displaced family has enough to eat for an entire month.
• Hygiene kits: daily necessities, blankets, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste and essential sanitary items to help maintain health and dignity in crowded environments.
• Children’s support boxes: designed for the youngest victims of the conflict, these boxes contain nutritious snacks, crayons, colouring books, simple educational materials and small toys to provide a small patch of joy and normality, which is hugely important in times like this.
• Trauma and emotional support: supporting trained local volunteers and church teams as they organise children’s activities, parental support groups and trauma conversations, offering spiritual encouragement to families contending with deep emotional scars.

Sharing in prayer

As local believers navigate this fragile reality, they are anchoring themselves in Scripture. Churches and discipleship groups across the country are finding comfort in Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The road to recovery and rebuilding in Lebanon will be long and difficult. Lebanese brothers and sisters are asking the body of Christ to pray for peace, justice and for more people to trust in Jesus amid destruction and devastation.

“The things people once trusted in have proved to be so fragile,” said one local partner. “But Jesus never leaves us. This is the message we want to share in word and action right now.”

Give today

People in Lebanon are looking to Christians like CMS partners for hope and comfort amid devastation and despair. Your gift to our Summer Appeal provides vital food, hygiene and trauma care, enabling local followers of Jesus to share the full message of God’s love with families in crisis.

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A unique theology training centre is equipping a new generation of leaders to transform Latin American communities.

Today, many indigenous people in Latin America are pushed to the edges of society, facing severe poverty and neglect.

Within this landscape, the local church faces a tough challenge to mentor young leaders who can navigate the pressures of the modern world without losing their cultural roots. This is where CMS comes in: helping provide the vital training and support these communities are asking for. Investing in indigenous leaders is crucial to the future of the church and the future of mission.

A journey of faith

Iliana left her community for the first time to study at CeFA (Centro de Formación Anglicano), a CMS-supported training centre for indigenous mission leaders.

The physical distances students must travel to reach CeFA are vast. Individuals journey from different provinces across Chaco, Formosa and Salta, representing the Wichí, Toba and Chorote communities. Because public transportation is non-existent in these remote areas, the logistics are a major challenge; the centre actually hires local pickup trucks to act as taxis just to get students to class.

Geographical distance is only the first hurdle. At the centre, students face the challenge of learning alongside peers from different indigenous languages and backgrounds. But instead of geography dividing people, students unite over their shared faith and goal to help more people learn about Jesus.

“I was 19 years old when I started,” Iliana reflects. “And although it was my first time away from my family and my community, God showed me from the beginning that I was not alone.

Inspired by my father’s example of service, I clearly felt the calling to prepare myself to better serve in God’s work.”

Head, hands and heart

CeFA offers theological and pastoral training contextualised to the unique needs of indigenous communities. The goal is two-fold: to provide students with solid biblical knowledge, and to create a nurturing space where they can develop Christlike character and explore their unique gifts.

To create well-rounded leaders, the curriculum is delivered in three distinct streams:

The academic programme includes a Bible overview, church history, creation care, safeguarding, Christian living and studies on Ephesians and Isaiah.

Afternoons focus on practical subjects such as understanding the spiritual world and the life of Christ. At weekends, students put their skills to use serving in local Anglican congregations.

Each day begins with collective devotions. Character is also formed through the daily routine, with rotating work groups responsible for meals, cleaning and maintenance.

This holistic environment offered Etelvina, a young Toba woman, something far deeper than a qualification.

“Coming to CeFA was a surprise for me and a clear sign from God, because I never imagined that someone would invite me, coming from such a remote place,” Etelvina says. “I arrived with doubts and wounds, but God began to heal me and strengthen my faith. Through the classes, community life and daily service, I grew and came to understand that God uses every situation to shape us. I now desire to share what God has done in me, serving others and being an instrument of his love.”

A growing global movement

Beyond the walls of the CeFA centre, the work of indigenous mission training continues to grow as CMS partners answer the call from indigenous communities asking for theological preparation and support. Today, partners are seeing the fruit of that vital investment:

We celebrate with students who are leading in their churches, strengthening theological teaching and pastoral care as they lead a missional movement.

CeFA graduates from different ethnic groups are transforming their communities, utilising training in communication to strengthen local initiatives.

Elsewhere in the region, in the Paraguayan Chaco, we are supporting local ethnic groups with practical tools, including an electricity course that offers vital new development and employment opportunities in remote locations.

In Paraguay and Argentina more than 500 indigenous adults and youth have completed discipleship courses (many translated into the Wichí language), strengthening and growing a culturally rooted faith.

Planting seeds for the future

By the time Iliana graduated at the end of 2025, her vision had grown and her confidence to teach her faith had strengthened. This internal shift will now benefit an entire people group.

“As the only Chorote student, I am very proud to represent my people,” Iliana says. “This journey is not only mine, but an expression of the faith and hope of my whole community.”

Today, Iliana’s deepest desire is to encourage other young people to study God’s Word. With the skills she has learnt at CeFA, she will inspire the next generation of indigenous leaders to respond to God’s call to mission in Latin America.

Pray together

Thank you God for brave young people like Iliana and Etelvina who are answering your missional call to lead in their communities. We pray for the students and teachers at CeFA as they pursue your heart for mission in Latin America. Amen

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A conversation between Nuam Hatzaw and Harvey Kwiyani

This conversation between two CMS lecturers, Nuam Hatzaw and Harvey Kwiyani, took place at The Assembly in Glasgow in November 2025. Harvey describes how he came to write his book, Decolonising Mission (see the book review section) and offers reflections on mission and empire. He tries to imagine mission being done without power and money, but rather reliant on the hospitality of others, rooted in relationship and motivated by love.

1. Motivation for the book

N: Harvey, can you tell me what motivated you to write this book? I know you have a long career in mission organisations.

H: Two things, really. First, I’m trying to process what happened in my own story – my village, my people, my family. My great-great-grandfather, Mtimawanzako Nacho, was one of the first converts of Scottish missionaries working at Blantyre Mission in Malawi at around 10 years old in the early 1880s (after escaping from the hands of slave raiders who took his parents away). The missionaries later brought him to Stewart’s Melville College in Edinburgh where he attended from 1885 to 1887. After returning to Malawi, he worked closely with the missionaries and eventually became the first Malawian to be entrusted with running a mission station independently.

He served Chiradzulu Mission faithfully from the 1890s into the 1920s. But later in life, he became entangled in conflict with Alexander Livingstone Bruce who owned the Bruce Estates at Magomero (where I was born) as part of the British settler farmers during the colonial era. That conflict escalated to the point that, in his 70s, after a lifetime of Christian leadership, he took his own life in 1945. So for me, this is not abstract. It’s deeply personal. I’m trying to make sense of how mission, faith and colonialism became so entangled that it produced that kind of outcome for someone like him.

Second, I am convinced that much of our missiology today remains shaped – often unconsciously – by the colonial assumptions that have shaped much of mission in the past 500 years. There lingers a defensive posture, as though Christendom is perpetually under threat, as if Constantinople might fall again. That anxiety continues to frame mission as the protection of the faith against external others.

Yet, when we turn to the Gospels, we see something quite different. Jesus is not defending an empire; he is announcing and enacting a kingdom that unsettles and subverts it. His mission does not secure power: he wants to give it away to those oppressed by the empire so they can live their lives to the full.

As long as mission remains tied to empire or to the cultural frameworks of Western civilisation, Christians from the rest of the world cannot participate as equal agents. At best, they are incorporated; at worst, they are managed. But we now inhabit a different moment, the era of world Christianity. Christians from every part of the world are already on the move, bearing witness to the gospel in ways that are not dependent on traditional sending structures.

Mission is no longer the preserve of one region or tradition; it is a shared calling of the global church.

2. Empire and reference points

N: That’s really helpful. The gospel spread in the context of empire, but not through empire. In colonial theory, there’s always a “centre” that defines everything. In Jesus’ time, Rome was that centre. Who is the centre today?

H: The British empire is no longer what it once was, but it still carries immense influence. The American empire certainly does. And when we look at global evangelicalism, those centres still shape much of what we call mission. But it’s not just Britain and America: European empires more broadly continue to shape global Christianity. These are the powers we are still negotiating as we serve Christ today. I am also aware of conversations that suggest that Silicon Valley and many other technological hubs are centres in the economics of empires.

N: And there’s also a kind of Christianity that functions like an empire, a very narrow definition of what it means to be the church or to do mission.

H: Exactly. Empires shape how people think. They produce theologies that serve their own interests. I argue in the book that what we call evangelicalism today can sometimes function as a kind of “religion of empire”, spreading a form of Christianity that serves imperial structures rather than subverting them.

3. Power, empire and the Spirit

N: Let me push back a bit: can God not use centres of power? Think of Cyrus in the Bible.

H: God can use anyone. But the issue is this: even when we are within empire, the gospel of the kingdom subverts the logic of empire. The danger comes when we mix the gospel of Christ with the logic of empire. That’s where we lose clarity.

Empires organise the world around centres and peripheries. Historically, to be ‘Christian’ was to be located near the centre – the city – while those beyond it were dismissed as ‘pagans’ or ‘heathens’. Jesus disrupts this geography even before it emerges. He forms his disciples in Galilee, far from the recognised centres of power, and sends them out from Jerusalem – not Rome or Alexandria, but from a marginal, contested centre within a colony, one that would itself be destroyed within a generation.

Mission, in this sense, does not proceed from imperial strength. It begins at the margins and moves outward – without the backing, validation or resources of empire. And crucially, he tells them to wait – not for political power, but for the power of the Spirit. So, if we are serious about decolonising mission, we must ask: are we relying on the power of empire – money, influence, institutions – or on the power of the Spirit?

4. Money and mission

N: That leads us to money. Mission requires funding, but money is also tied to power. How do we think about that?

H: In Luke 10, Jesus tells his disciples not to carry a purse – just go. They are to live as people without power, dependent on the hospitality of those who receive them. Mission, in that sense, is not resourced by wealth but sustained through relationships. Today, however, mission is often restricted to those with access to financial resources. Yet, when Christ says, “Go,” he is addressing everyone, rich and poor alike. If participation in mission depends primarily on access to money, we need to ask what kind of mission we have constructed.

This is especially important today when millions of Christians are already on the move. A Pew Research Center report (2024) suggests that around 47 per cent of international migrants are Christians.¹ They move for work, education and trade, but they also carry the gospel with them. We rarely recognise them as missionaries because they have not been formally “sent”. Perhaps decolonising mission requires a shift in perspective. Instead of asking, “Who can we send?” we might begin by asking, “Where is God already at work through people on the move – and how can we join them?”

5. Rethinking success in mission

N: What does this mean practically, especially in areas like funding, reporting and evaluation?

H: In Western systems, we often measure success through numbers: how many people were converted, how many decisions were made. That drives funding. But what if success looks different?

What about the missionary who spends years building relationships, showing the love of Christ, but sees no immediate conversions? That witness may bear fruit in the next generation.

Mission is relational. It is about presence, faithfulness and witness – not just measurable outcomes. If we change how we define success, we will change how we practise mission.

6. The complexity of mission history

N: How do we deal with the complicated legacy of mission, both its positive and negative aspects?

H: It is complex. Take David Livingstone, for example. In Malawi, he is remembered as a hero. But historically, he also contributed to arguments that enabled colonisation. His work led, almost directly, to the colonisation of the Congo by Leopold II of Belgium, to the Berlin Conference of 1884, and to the Scramble for Africa that followed.

And then there are stories like that of Nacho, my great-great-grandfather, a local mission leader whose contributions are largely absent from the official record. I had to come to the Edinburgh archives to learn his story. It is not preserved in Malawi.

So, the issue is not that every missionary was bad. The issue is the system. The system was entangled with empire. We need to acknowledge that honestly – lament it, repent of it – and then imagine new ways of participating in God’s mission that are not shaped by those same structures.

7. Imagining mission without empire

N: Finally, what might mission without empire look like?

H: We need to ask some fundamental questions. Can we imagine mission without conquest? The word missio has military origins: it is about the sending of soldiers. But the New Testament idea of sending (apostolos) is relational. It is people sending people, not empires sending agents.

So what would mission look like if it were:

• driven by love rather than fear?
• shaped by vulnerability rather than power?
• rooted in relationship rather than conquest?
• empowered by the Spirit and not empires?

Can we imagine mission that is not backed by military or economic power, but by compassion? If we are to rethink mission today, these are the questions we must take seriously.

About the authors

Nuam Hatzaw is MA lecturer in Asian Christianity at CMS; her research and teaching focuses on migration, Asian theology and world Christianity.

Dr Harvey Kwiyani is a team leader at CMS where he leads the Acts 11 project on mission and migration and leads the African Christianity route through the MA. He is a theologian and missiologist specialising in African Christianity, diaspora mission and intercultural leadership, working at the intersection of theology, migration and the global church. He is the author of Decolonizing Mission, which advances a vision of Christian witness beyond imperial frameworks toward a more Spirit-empowered, polycentric and relational global church.

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Notes

1. Pew Research Center, The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants (Pew Research Center, 2024), https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/PR_2024.08.19_religious-composition-migrants_report.pdf ︎

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Mission, movements and sodal life

Johnny Sertin in conversation with Kris Rocke

J: Street Psalms has been at the forefront of cultivating a sodal network over a number of years. What first compelled you to give your life to this kind of movement rather than a more traditional organisational model?

K: Thanks for the opportunity to journey with Aspen or what I affectionately call a “sister sodality”. There are not that many of us. As you know historically there have been two main forms of church in history – the sodal and the modal form. The modal form is what we think of when we think of a local congregation – a community that does life together from cradle to grave in a specific parish community. The other form is the sodal form. This is a community that gathers around a shared mission and has a shared “charism” that it nurtures for the sake of the larger body of Christ. Typically, these were called “orders”. Well, “orders” fell out of favour at the Reformation but the need for the sodal form of the church has never stopped. I grew up Catholic so orders always made sense to me. In fact, I was drawn to the missional focus of the orders. I knew I didn’t want to pastor a local congregation (which is a good thing, because it was a mutual feeling… as it turns out, no local church wanted me as a pastor). So, it was always sodality or bust for me. Street Psalms’ mission is to free leaders to love and serve in Jesus’ name. Our charism is the way we “see and celebrate Good News in hard places”. Our role is to steward this gift on behalf of the modal form of the church – to walk alongside leaders and congregations who are living out the gospel in their context.

So, we are an order with a seminary and a design studio that serves a global network. We have 41 ordained members scattered throughout the world (that is, they are ordained into Street Psalms). Our seminary is the reflection side of our work. It provides formation for those seeking ordination, our fellows and all those who want to be formed with us. Our design studio is the action side of our work. We co-create models of social innovation that lead to human flourishing. So, we are a religious order with a seminary and design studio that serves a global network that represents more than 100 cities around the world.

So, that’s my best spiritual answer as to why we chose the sodal form of the church. And it’s true: it fits who we are. We’ve been doing this work for nearly 30 years and we have always shown up as a sodality, even when we didn’t know that word. But it wasn’t until about four years ago that we got serious about formally incorporating as a sodality and the truth is it wasn’t exactly a spiritual impulse. To put it bluntly, by incorporating as a sodal community it allowed us to continue to receive large grants from high-impact donors and foundations. I won’t try to explain the complicated philanthropic codes of the United States, but let’s just say that it was greatly to our advantage to incorporate as a religious order – which we were happy to do since that is how we understood ourselves anyway. Sorry if that makes us a little less spiritually grounded, but hey, it’s the truth.

J: Looking back over the early years of Street Psalms, what have been some of the most significant learnings, particularly where reality didn’t meet expectation?

K: In retrospect, Street Psalms got lucky about something that took us years to understand. Nearly 30 years ago, a diverse group of leaders came together around our shared love for the city, the most vulnerable and Jesus. What we didn’t anticipate is that we would become such great friends who liked each other. I have a hunch that it was our delight in each other that became our most attractive quality. We were having fun and others wanted to join the party. Maybe there is something more powerful than friendship, but I’m not sure what it is. Even Jesus seemed to think that friendship is what agape-love looks like when it is fully mature. He says to his disciples, “I call you friends.” I don’t want to undersell the high ideals around which we gathered – they too have served us well – but it’s the gift of friendship that has sustained our movement, from early-stage friendship where affection was easy and mostly just fun, to late-stage friendship that can bear one another’s wounds and failures and hold life’s complexities. We are now testing the next frontier of friendship – one that includes our enemies. We’re a dispersed and diverse, cross-denominational community of Protestant and Catholic and this includes right of centre and left of centre and all that entails. The gift of friendship looks different now, but I have a hunch that if there is a future for our community, it will come down to something as simple as our mutual affection for one another.

J: In your experience, what is it about place and community that makes mission come alive? And why do you think this is especially important in this cultural moment?

K: I live in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in the city of Tacoma, near the Puget Sound. I have a well used fishing boat that allows me to get out on the water. It’s a happy place for me. Every boat needs a name, so I named the boat “Now.Here.This”. It’s from the title of an old Off-Broadway play. The name reminds me that the only moment we have is the present moment. That’s all we ever get. It’s in this moment that Word made flesh comes to us. That is how God is enfleshed… moment by moment. I bring this up because most of us are conditioned to live in a constant state of FOMO. There is always somewhere else we want to be. I am the chief of sinners in this regard. The key, I am told, is to be where we are… living in the now (not then) and being here (not there), and welcoming this (not that). “Now.Here.This.” It’s in this light that our community is encouraged to take something like a vow of stability – to dig where we stand – to root where we are planted – to love, not only the people in our lives but also the places to which we belong. And to do so moment by moment, in community, which is the only way this works. At Street Psalms we are not dogmatic about our quasi vow of stability (life is too complex), but given that it takes most of us a lifetime to become fully human and build communities of human flourishing, generally speaking it’s a good idea to stay put and work it out. If there is nowhere God is not, and all ground is holy ground, then I suppose wherever we are is plenty good enough. God is fond of the particular. Now.Here.This.

J: For those of us nurturing emerging sodalities like Aspen, what practices or postures have you found most essential in forming people for this kind of shared life and mission?

K: It is tempting to list off practices that have meant a lot to our community, but I don’t think that’s how it works. What’s more important is that you have some practices and it’s even more important that you have rhythms by which you engage those practices. Finding what Paul describes as “the unforced rhythms of grace” is worth all the effort. As for “posture”, well, I’m a big fan of whatever posture allows you to take your work and call seriously without taking yourself too seriously. I guess you’d call that humility, and a good indicator of humility is having a sense of humour – which is something that I’ve experienced first-hand in your community.

J: There’s often a tension between movement and structure, freedom and form. How have you navigated that within Street Psalms, and what wisdom would you offer to others trying to hold that balance?

K: The creative tension you speak of is where the mojo is. Living in that creative tension is the role of leadership, I think… and leadership is one long creative act. In my experience, creation is not a thing that happened a long time ago… it is a present reality to which we are invited. When Jesus in-spires the disciples in the resurrection – literally “breathes into” them – he is not only animating them with life, but calling them to participate in the ongoing act of creation. And for my money, creation happens in the creative tensions you describe. Too much “structure” and not enough “movement” restricts, clamps down, holds back. Maybe that’s something like constipation. Too much movement and not enough structure, well, I’ll let you guess what that is like. Anyway, given the various temperaments within a community, the creative tension will probably make the whole community slightly frustrated and I sort of think that might be healthy.

J: If you were to name one or two signs of genuine transformation in people or communities, what would you point to as evidence that this way of life is bearing fruit?

K: One of the surest signs of genuine transformation in a community that is undergoing the gospel of Jesus is the increased capacity to receive and give mercy. And this opens the way to an unusual kind of community. The kind of community that can create belonging without othering… the kind that can occupy its wounds and the wounds of the world in a way that becomes the womb of new creation. This is the sort of sign that I think Jesus had in mind… And then again, all this can sound so serious and can leave us feeling a bit too self-important. So, perhaps the chief sign of genuine transformation is something that one of your very own jolly prophets noticed. It was G.K. Chesterton who said, “Joy is the gigantic secret of the faith.” Yes, joy may very well be THE sign of transformation.

About the authors

Jonny Sertin, Britain hub movement lead at CMS, is a well-known practitioner in the field of local and global missions. He is an entrepreneur, community developer, and ordained minister. He has lived or served in over 40 nations exploring the edge between contextual mission, spirituality and community practice.

Kris Rocke is the executive director of Street Psalms, a global organisation focused on developing incarnational leaders in urban communities.

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Servants Southall community scrapbook

by Idina Dunmore

Ten years on from closing our doors, this collection of memories illustrates the journey of pioneering the Servants Southall community. I hope this ‘scrapbook’ gives encouragement to anyone considering this type of incarnational ministry. It all began with a picture God gave me in 1999:

From the Servants Southall newsletter, December 2010

I can’t help feeling a little old when I consider that it was back at the end of the last century when God gave me a vision of transformation in Southall. At the time, 1999, I was working as a Health Visitor at a clinic in Old Southall, so I was becoming acquainted with the issues for families in the area: low quality and crowded housing; poor medical facilities; relationship problems including substance misuse and violence; financial difficulties; lack of safe public places…. Although it was overwhelming, I also had a growing passion to contribute to change and help find solutions to some of these issues.

One weekend, I was driving out of London with my prayer-partner and good friend. As we drove around the by-pass we had a good view of Southall and the iconic blue gas tower that looms over the area. As we were on the flyover, the sun broke through the damp clouds and a rainbow appeared, overarching the tower and the town. “There,” said my friend, “God’s giving you a sign about his promises for Southall!” We laughed and didn’t think much about it, except that it was one of those pictures in your mind that doesn’t fade, neither for me or my friend. And we often reminded each other of it.

Funnily enough, more than ten years later, my friend lived in Southall for several years, having married a local vicar. And I live here now too, with a supportive team, and most of my work is in the community with women and families. In September I, with a small team from St John’s Church, set up a Baby & Toddler Group in the Parish Centre. It has started small but already good, supportive relationships are being built with and between parents.

And having prayed about a certain house on Havelock Estate, which was in an ideal location, Mary and I moved into it at the end of October. On the first weekend living there, another rainbow appeared outside our front door, framing my view of the estate. What can I say about God’s plans, except to exclaim with the Proverbs writer, “We make our own plans, but the Lord decides where we will go.” And that they are good!!

Innovation

It was in September 2008 that five people relocated to Southall to start an intentional, Christian, missional community. God had given me the vision two years before and confirmed it clearly.

I was on the board of trustees of a small mission organisation called Servants (www.servantsasia.org). They were looking to set up teams in the Global North, and independently a vicar in Southall met the international coordinator of Servants and requested him to send a team to Southall.

When I heard of their interest in Southall, I wrote a vision document, prayed for a team, and we moved into the area. The photo below shows us at our first meeting – gathering to thrash out what a community would look like in Southall.

We were united by our faith in Christ and the principles and values of Servants, but between us we had little experience of living or serving in community.

Below are some of the steps we took. We really didn’t know what we were doing, but with good counsel, and as we stepped out in faith, God did guide our path.

Nurturing new growth

Before we did anything, we hired an allotment… a prophetic statement about transforming the wasteland into a garden – but also with the vision for starting a community garden on the plot.

This was quickly realised by partnering with A Rocha and became a thriving gardening project/community who worked on the land together every week, supporting each other, and starting Southall Transitions Group funded by the local council. Seeds of another A Rocha project were sown here too: Wolf Fields Urban Nature Reserve was subsequently created half a mile away and continues to be a beautiful urban oasis.

Initiating community

We rented two houses in the same street – near enough to “carry a casserole dish of food in our pyjamas”!                    

We set about forming a rhythm of life: prayer in the mornings twice weekly at 6.30am, and twice weekly team meetings in the evening, with shared meals together. One of these evenings soon became ‘outward-focused’, where we invited our neighbours in to join us for a meal and social time.

Our God, you are Trinity, Community,
Unbroken relationship, Love without beginning or end.
And most wonderful of all, you make room for us,
Drawing us in out of the cold, calling us friends.
As we come to you, you lead us to each other,
Into the security of belonging,
And the risks of openness.
We will not attempt alone what we can do together.
With family and friends, team and neighbours,
With those we would prefer to avoid.
Help us live the reality of trust and forgiveness today

From Servants Rhythm of Prayer – Into the Presence

Reaching out to those beyond the church

How did we get to know our neighbours? We did it through:

• partnering with churches and volunteering at other organisations,
• such as A Rocha, Missionaries of Charity, teaching English in a Somali NGO
• hanging out in our front garden, and D. starting to mend bikes for local children 
• as the children started hanging out in our house, getting to know the parents, and starting an impromptu homework club 

And we took every opportunity to celebrate: festivals, birthdays, babies, hellos or goodbyes:

Happy Anniversary!

We’ve now all been in Southall for one year. How does it feel? What have we done? 

We’ve all got new paying jobs and joined local churches

We’ve lived in the community: over the summer the local kids from our street played in our home most days. We’ve talked to social workers, started tutoring sessions, helped with computers, mended bikes, given out vegetables, hosted cooking and art lessons, taken trips to the local library and even warned off drug dealers! 

We’ve started hosting regular Creative World Justice evenings with a local flavour: for example, we invited some friends from a persecuted people-group in Burma, the Kachin, to inform us of their struggle. Most recently we heard from a Tamil leader about the genocide that is currently occurring in Sri Lanka.

We’ve progressed through our Formation material: we’ve discussed issues such as simplicity, Islam, non-violence, eco-responsibility, community development. We’ve read relevant books each month and shared our reflections together.

We’ve prayed consistently early mornings on Mondays and Thursdays

And we’ve served the local community: helping at English classes, a toddler group and soup kitchens. 

Personally, I rarely tire of this vibrant community, where I very often meet people I know in the street as I go to the local vegetable shop or grocers. I hear Hindi spoken all around me, which encourages me to continue learning, and I enjoy the Indian essence of our neighbourhood.

Written by Idina in Servants Southall newsletter – October 2009

Team building and pastoral care

In our first year we followed “formation material” that our organisation provided and we adapted to our context. We had a reading list of books we studied and then discussed together. We also majored on team-building and understanding each other through personality profiling. This remained important to us in the many ups-and-downs of community life. We had ‘team days’ and also annual weekend retreats away, as well as spending social time and eating together. We all found spiritual directors to encourage our spiritual growth.

Prophetic voice

We led discussions on missional community at the margins and ran a promotional stall at Greenbelt. We also engaged with other like-minded groups and contributed at conferences, including Speak Network.

Re-visioning

We had known from the outset that our charism was to reach out among the most marginalised in Southall. As we prayed about this, we felt drawn to a local council estate, called Havelock Estate.

In the summer of 2010 when our former landlord asked us to move, we found a house to rent on the estate… and subsequently two houses on the same street.

Servants Southall

As a community of Christians choosing to live in an urban, multi-cultural and low-income area of west London, we commit to:

• Follow Jesus
• Share our lives and support one another as a community of households
• Extend a warm welcome and generous hospitality
• Empower local people in co-operation with churches and other organisations
• Challenge the individualistic materialism prevalent in our society
• Work for justice from both local and global perspectives

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Our community flourished as we met our new neighbours: through the community garden, in the street or at other activities, and at events such as an unofficial street party (for the royal wedding in 2011) and carol-singing around the estate.

Forming a new community of faith

We began a weekly Thursday night bring-and-share meal to which we invited our friends and neighbours.

A stable group began to emerge, mainly of people at the margins of their own community for some reason: family difficulties, single parenting, domestic violence, mental or physical health issues, poverty.

The group slowly became a support for each other, perhaps an ‘extended family’ for those with few other resources – and for us who had moved into the area.

We planned a programme of social activities: barbecues, bonfires, trips to local countryside and the beach, and to cultural events. We also encouraged sharing and creative responses, which gave people confidence in their abilities.

Creative faith-sharing

Our neighbours and friends were mostly from Sikh, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. However, they knew we are followers of Jesus and many natural faith conversations arose. We had a time of prayer for 30 minutes before each evening, and also led Jesus-centred worship, prayer and discussion especially at festival seasons. A men’s discussion group and a creative women’s group emerged, where issues of faith were the focus of the sessions.

A time of reflection and response to Jesus as the light of the world on Diwali (Hindu and Sikh festival of light):

It was interesting to notice that as the members of our group were nurtured, they became keen to volunteer and especially to serve others in Southall who were in difficult situations, because they recognised the needs of people in the neighbourhood, and perhaps because they saw us modelling that service too.

They have helped with a food bank, winter night shelters for the homeless, Messy Church and toddler group, a community garden, and an English class crèche. And they, in turn, built community in those places.

Partnerships and networking

From the outset, partnership with local churches was at the heart of the Servants Southall community aims. At the local CofE parish churches, we were able to encourage and catalyse the church to serve its local community through outward-looking ministries:  

• parent-and-toddler group
• Messy Church
• homeless night shelter
• food bank
• mental health drop-in and warm space

I became a governor at our local nursery school, and part of the planning group of an annual fun day at the Children’s Centre on our estate, to which we invited the parish church, Servants and Transitions to have a presence. I found this an exciting event, as the community came together to share and connect with one another, and discovered that we could work for transformation together.

Working for transformation at the margins:

Sometimes the needs in Southall seem overwhelming. It can seem that almost every household has a major issue going on; whether sickness, disability, financial hardship, family breakdown, mental health concerns. It can feel hopeless. But we know that Jesus came to restore hope, to bring life, and establish shalom – ‘life in all its fullness’. Can we dream what this means for our friends here? Do we know our part in this? Maybe we’re just starting to… 

Written by Idina in Servants Southall Newsletter – April 2010

In living among our neighbours and walking with them through good times and difficulties, we started to see glimpses of transformation, in them and in ourselves. It is often that the new is growing alongside the old, and at times we see more of one, at times more of the other.

But we kept praying with those in our neighbourhood and held on to faith that in Christ transformation to a new, full life is possible, to become all God has made us to be.    

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm,
May he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

Northumbria Community blessing for Morning Prayer

Endings

After eight years, in 2016, it became clear that it was time to close the Servants community in Southall. There had been 11 team members during these years, and they scattered to pursue new initiatives, the majority inspired by their time in this community.

The Thursday evening group was able to be nurtured into a new worshipping community at the local parish church, called The Table, which has been documented in this book: https://ccx.org.uk/resource/send-me/, and this video: https://ccx.org.uk/stories/the-table/

Ten years on, I hope something of the legacy of Servants Southall remains. We keep some contacts in the neighbourhood, and it is encouraging to hear about continuing faith journeys and engagement in community transformation. The local churches continue to work together, with the neighbourhood now partly gentrifying.

With our friends we continue to pray for God’s goodness, justice and peace in Southall.

With thanks to everyone who has been part of the Servants Southall community

About the author

Idina Dunmore was a founding member of the Servants Southall Community in 2008. She was ordained as a pioneer minister in 2019, having trained at CMS, and is currently associate minister at Church on the Corner (COTC) in Islington. She is enjoying seeing several new pioneering initiatives emerge there, including a warm-space drop-in with prayer-space, an international meal with refugees, and a lay team focused on community ministry across the parish.  

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Mission needs fellowship: Qualities of the Fresh X movement in Germany

by Katharina Haubold

This article draws on conversations with participants at the Fresh X-Network gathering in March 2026: Claudia Fischer, Felix Goldinger, Miriam Hoffmann, Thomas Meyer, Aline Ott, Torsten Pappert, Martin Roemer and Susanne Zippenfenig. I am grateful for their openness and willingness to share.

The “Fresh Expressions of Church” round table in the German-speaking world was founded in 2012. From the outset, it was ecumenical, with people from free churches, Protestant regional churches and Roman Catholic backgrounds. Inspired by the Fresh Expressions movement in England, people came together to learn more about incarnational mission, to exchange experiences and to explore together how the church might be reshaped through its participation in God’s sending. Over time, a small team emerged, materials and courses were translated and developed, study trips were organised and a digital platform was built. The Fresh X-Network now includes 28 organisational members and 270 individual members. Perhaps one particular gift of the Fresh X-Network is that it offers a framework for encounter and companionship across denominational boundaries. But as a mission movement, it lives above all through connection, exchange and encounter.

It has had a significant impact such that now most denominations in the German-speaking region have their own projects and formats for experimenting with new forms of church, strengthening missional initiatives and setting out afresh with people who have had little or no connection to church or faith. Over the years, questions have kept surfacing – and at present, in the face of rapid membership decline after a long period of stability in the German churches, they have become especially pressing: Do we really still need this network? Has it already fulfilled its original task of “communicating the posture and attitude of fresh expressions into the centre of the church” and therefore become obsolete? Given shrinking resources, can we really afford all this networking? Is the output worth the investment of time, energy and money?

Yet, in these concrete encounters, many of us keep experiencing qualities we would not want to lose. So when we gathered for the network meeting at the end of March, we used small, informal conversations around the edges of the event to explore what those qualities actually are. What follows is shaped by those conversations and by the voices of those who shared their perspectives.

Your name is enough

One of the qualities is a companionship in which your name is enough.

“I find it so fascinating – this is one of the very few spaces in church life where the name badge simply carries a name: no role, no title, perhaps just a topic the person would like to talk about. With many people here, I don’t even know where they work, what denomination they belong to, or what their formal position is. It makes for very different kinds of encounters.”

Of course, as conversations unfold, people sometimes do talk about role, position and profession. For some topics it is helpful to know the context, perspective and experience from which someone is speaking. But usually this is only shared when it actually serves the conversation. As a result, people from very different professions, levels of hierarchy and denominations speak with one another more openly and as equals without the need for titles or positions. I really appreciate the loosening of the usual habits which so often get in the way of our calling and life together.

Sharing is caring

I have found so much inspiration over the years through the Fresh X-Network: good questions, wonderful resources and space to experiment. Sometimes this happens at the annual gathering and sometimes through newsletters. Simply knowing that there are so many people carrying the same longing in their own contexts – creatively and open to the movement of the Holy Spirit – is a treasure and a gift. I also know that I can simply call someone, that others are interested in my experience, that across all boundaries we understand ourselves as companions on the way. There is something deeply connective about that.

I notice how deeply grateful I am that “sharing is caring” is genuinely a principle that I and others experience here. Sharing is caring not only when it comes to ideas, inspiration and resources, but also when it comes to worries, frustration and fear. In the quiet conversations, in a walk during a conference, in messages and emails, there is also room for what is heavy. It does not always become lighter straightaway, but simply knowing that it may be shared fills me with gratitude. We do not gather, and we do not stay connected, in order to outdo one another with our successes. We gather in order to journey together, in all the dimensions that such a journey involves. At our best, we experience this: everything may be brought.

A space that changes us

“The horizon of thought is wider here.”

This sentence expresses something essential about what becomes possible in this network. In these encounters, something shifts, sometimes quite noticeably. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that it becomes clear just how much moved. I experience it too. In conversations, sometimes almost in passing, thoughts arise that I would never have had on my own. Ideas are not immediately evaluated, but first allowed to unfold. Questions that I may have carried around for a long time suddenly find new words, or I watch someone else take them up and develop them further in a process of co-creation. Sometimes those questions lose some of their weight simply because others share them. And sometimes things that had become stuck in my thinking and acting, without me fully noticing it, become visible here, are questioned, and in the best sense become fluid.

I notice my perspective widening – on church, on mission, on what is possible. And sometimes also on what I need to let go of. That matters deeply to me. Thinking more broadly does not simply mean building more and wanting more. It also means seeing more clearly what I have so far been unwilling or unable to relinquish, even when the time had come. In recent years, the theme of “exnovation” has become increasingly important in our movement. There is no innovation without exnovation, without letting some things go, without creating space. Yet, at times the theory of exnovation seems even harder to put into practice than the theory of innovation. Perhaps we – or at least I – simply began far too late to practise this properly. Those who let something go sometimes make themselves even more unpopular than those who experiment and try something new on top of what already exists. As long as it is an “add-on”, new ideas tend to be welcomed. But when the existing is examined just as critically as the new, when treasured things have to be released and farewells have to be made, resistance grows louder. In this network I find companionship in those areas where it is hard for me to let go, even though I sense it is time. And I find courage and strength, with others, to face the necessary endings.

“You leave feeling that you understand your calling a little more clearly.”

The change is not only at the level of thought. It gets personal. I have heard this sense of being changed in conversations with people from the Fresh X-Network. People get a reset, get back on track. And for that, it is so helpful not only to be travelling with people from one’s own immediate context. This is not necessarily about ready-made answers. It is more about an inner sorting, a new prioritising. Sometimes things fall into place and we see more clearly what is actually called for, where there is life and perhaps where there is no longer life. Perhaps this is one of the underestimated qualities of such networks: they do not simply produce ideas; they change people. They create spaces in which we do not only talk about mission, but continually locate ourselves afresh within that sending.

Heart-deep connection

“There is such a heart-deep connection here.”

Many of us know the feeling of being lonely with the things that stir us. We get used to hearing again and again sentences such as these: “We’ve always done it this way.” “That didn’t work before.” “That’s naive and far too idealistic.” “But have you thought about the older people / younger people / families / those attached to tradition / the donors… ?” “Who is going to pay for that?” “What you want isn’t really church.” “We already have enough other problems.” It costs a lot of energy to inhabit church settings where there is criticism and where no heart-deep connection exists, spaces where you have to be tactical, where you can be quietly dismissed, where everyone is mostly just doing their own job and any shared vision has been lost. Some of us have seriously wondered whether paths outside institutional church life might be simpler and more promising.

Yet, by way of contrast, in the encounters we have in the Fresh X movement it is so life-giving not to have to explain ourselves for once, not to feel strange, not to keep hitting the same kinds of walls over and over again! Where our longing and our searching meet resonance, suddenly a burden lifts. The concrete situation may not have changed at all. But it is like we are taking a deep breath that creates space in the soul. We feel understood. For such heart-deep connection, we need spaces that allow vulnerability. Yes, some dreams of church are naive, and sharing them can expose them. Yes, experimenting may mean failure. And being able to speak about that without being judged gives courage to keep going anyway.

It is especially meaningful when we share spirituality together and make our different traditions tangible to one another. That is not always easy. It seems to require a constant remembering together that this is one of the levels on which we want to meet, so that it does not slip from view. Sharing spirituality with one another, and allowing others into this heart-deep connection, often seems harder than listening to talks, holding panel discussions, or drinking coffee together. And yet it is so valuable to choose it again and again, and to become vulnerable on this level – sharing what we love and trusting that it will be received with respect and appreciation, even if it feels unfamiliar at first.

I notice that what is still missing for me in this network is a shared spirituality that can be carried into everyday life. In recent years, we have not engaged very deeply with the question of personal discipleship. Something remains open here for me – something I would love to see grow stronger.

Sent together

We are sent together. Jesus’ sending does not stop at denominational boundaries. This mission movement quietly and steadily reminds me that we are never sent alone – neither as individuals nor as separate denominations. Jesus’ sending is given to us as the ecumenical church in the German-speaking region. Jesus’ sending belongs to the worldwide ecumenical movement. It does not end at the boundaries of the churches.

Again and again, we find ourselves united in the conviction that God is already at work in the world, always present, and that we are participants in God’s own self-sending. I experience that as deeply healing. Healing, because it corrects me and broadens my perspective: my image of God, my spiritual practices, my priorities in faith, my limitations. But it is also healing because it reminds me so clearly that the companionship of Jesus spans the world, and that I am safely held within it – with those who came before me, with those with whom I now travel near and far, moved by the Spirit of God, and with those who will come after us. That includes those whose way of living out their calling is so different from mine that I do not necessarily feel an immediate heart-deep connection with them. Over the years, the Fresh X-Network has offered a place in which being joined together in mission is experienced and deepened. We are discovering that in so many places we not only face the same challenges, but also share the same heartbeat.

The question of whether the Fresh X-Network is still needed is not one we have asked for the last time. And perhaps one day we really will arrive together at the point of saying: this particular form of mission movement is no longer needed right now. But the dimensions of fellowship that I have experienced here over the years are something I don’t want to lose. And if I no longer find them in the Fresh X-Network, then I will need to find them elsewhere. Because mission needs this kind of fellowship.

About the author

Katharina Haubold lives in Cologne, where she is part of a team pioneering a fresh expression of church, and has been involved in the Fresh X-Network in Germany in various roles since 2017.

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Kairos: a mission movement and community in Yorkshire North & East

by Liane Kensett

The journey of the Kairos Movement began just before COVID-19 hit. Leslie Newton (chair of the Methodist Yorkshire North & East District), Andy Lindley (Methodist Presbyter then located in York) and I (lay worker based in the Hull area) were wondering together what the Methodist Church across our district might look like in the future. Here, like Methodism in churches everywhere, the season of what has been is clearly coming to an end.

As Leslie reminds us in his book,¹ Methodism emerged in the 18th century with a real sense of movement as new communities started with very contextual small groups, and as this evolved it became a movement of real transformation. As with many things, we like to duplicate and then standardise what ‘works’ and over the years Methodism has become an institution, and then in many ways has become stuck. However, people within the institution have earmarked significant money to explore what new places might look like for new people, and so we decided to make use of that and start an exploration of what new thing might be waiting to grow in Yorkshire North & East.

Encounter Encourage Explore

We named our new endeavour the Kairos Movement and hoped that reflected a sense of divine movement at this time. We then discerned some guiding principles. It was to be an endeavour guided by encounter with one another and the divine. It would be a community where we would encourage one another and where we could explore what that might look like in everyday life.

Our movement consists of an organic network of small groups, drawing people together with an itch to explore different spiritual practices, ministry or interests. Initially, all our gatherings were on Zoom, which enabled us to meet from across the district, and was part of most people’s lives anyway due to COVID-19. As time has gone on, many of us have fallen out of love with Zoom and although still relying upon it, we are gradually working out a balance of connection via social media and physically gathered meet-ups.

We reflect a lot on what the natural world teaches us through the mycelium network (incredibly tiny ‘threads’ forming a vast fungal network that enables nutrient absorption, ecosystem recycling, and symbiotic communication between all land plants and soil) as we connect with those rooted in the different physical and faith communities across the district. Together we are figuring out how to support and encourage one another as we experiment with how to live a dispersed community life.

The Kairos Movement has certainly done a lot of shape-shifting since its conception. Many of the mini experiments have had very short seasons, such as the regular ‘Zoom lounge’ we thought might act like the workplace ‘water cooler’, offering space for casual, passing relationships to grow. It didn’t, so we stopped it.

The Kairos Community, as we now call the intentional faith community, has become part of the New Streams Circuit in Yorkshire North & East, a circuit that is an incubator as well as providing a home for New Places for New People in our district. The Kairos Movement, its core community and network of small groups continue to provide both a haven and a space embracing a more progressive, inclusive faith for individuals with and without other places of faith belonging. New Streams is overseen by Andy, and the Kairos Community by Liane, but we continue to work and seek the Spirit for wisdom together and with an expanding core team.

The Kairos Community doesn’t have a building, and physical gatherings often involve being outside (often in the rain for some reason), as we try and meet up in different places across the district, joining in with what is already going on. Usually there are very small numbers at any one thing, but we do try and get as many of us as possible together for a day in the summer and a weekend in the winter.

Many of those who find their way to us have been hurt and burned out, and/or are in some kind of faith shift from a doctrinally conservative Christian faith. We are grateful for the diversity of small groups as people can select and become involved wherever is most helpful for them at any one time. The priority is for everyone to be seen, heard and valued as they explore their own identity, meaning and connections; we aim for each of us to grow deeper roots grounded in the divine story of love we find in the way of Jesus. We draw on a breadth of ancient and modern faith practices. Groups vary from contemplative prayer to a physical gathering that is constantly “being interrupted”.²

We have steered away from stating a set of beliefs, as each one of us acknowledges what we believe might change from day to day, and we treasure what doubt and questioning have to teach us. We aim to be pilgrims alongside those at different stages of spiritual growth, not always anticipating progression. For those who find us, we feel we are responding to a cultural and spiritual shift from linear logic and hierarchy to a more sustainable, intuitive, holistic interconnectedness which are expressed in our shared values. These values grow out of our Christian and Methodist heritage (see Wesley’s manifesto).

In our human hunger for meaning, we recognise the need for ritual³ and have noticed a rhythm to our collective life is emerging. In some places it is embedded in the local community and offers opportunity for deep connection, such as the Fridays@ group in Hull where we are collaborating with CMS and a local community-based charity to host a reflective conversation space. Or in Co-create, our monthly online “Awe and wonder bring and share” where we each bring something: a poem, picture, song or thought that has been inspired by the theme and offers a glimpse of the divine.

Virtual Campfires offers a space to intentionally explore values-based reflective practice, to celebrate and commiserate as those responding to the call to build community in new and different ways across the district. From a podcast for young families to outside church to ideas of cold water swimming, mentoring young people as a visual storytelling community, creating space for families with additional needs and celebrating neurodiversity, there are inklings and glimpses of opportunities to be and share love. And in our monthly Zoom, we walk alongside one another in our explorations of these passions.

If it sounds like we are all highly productive people with an agenda to constantly make and do, I think I have given a false impression. Rather than always being the ones who lead and organise, we try to join in with what is already happening, and encourage one another to be active participants in our dispersed local communities, but also to learn how to ‘be’ and to have a healthy rhythm of life.

Our gatherings are usually participative, with mutual sharing of insights and stories in response to blogs, videos, podcasts or people active in their ministry. Out of deep conversations that emerge as we hang out together, we are discovering a shared spiritual journey and figuring out how to be a co-created community that gently supports and shapes our lives. It often doesn’t look like much at all, just a couple of people getting together over a cuppa, a card sent in the post to someone to let them know the community are thinking of them, or a small group turning up at a local Pride march.

Alongside our weekly mailing, our community and each of our groups have their own WhatsApp group, where we continue the conversation and strengthen relationships. We are currently building a rhythm of prayer and meditation throughout the week using Zoom or WhatsApp, something that builds a collective framework alongside our independent and dispersed lives.

I hope this gives a glimpse into the journey we are on with Kairos. We are currently finishing all our physical gatherings by speaking one-sentence blessings over one another, so here is my blessing for you. What blessing will you say into the circle?

“May we share a hope that does not fade and embody love that cannot be lost; in the darkness, vulnerability and unorganised mess of real life, may we find and share Light.”

Find out more on our websites: www.newstreams.org.uk and www.kairosmovement.org.uk

About the author

Liane Kensett is a pioneer with the Methodist Church, co-leading the Kairos Movement in Yorkshire North & East, and a mental health chaplain in the NHS.

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Notes

1. Leslie Newton, Revive us Again (PublishU, 2023). ︎
2. Al Barrett and Ruth Harley, Being Interrupted (SCM Press, 2020). ︎
3. Casper Ter Kuile, The Power of Ritual (William Collins, 2021). ︎

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Common Grace Aotearoa: equipping the church for structural change

by Alex Johnston

Great social movements of the past have often been shaped and led by people of faith: think of Dr King and the civil rights movement; Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect’s long campaign to end slavery. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, the spiritual leaders Te Whiti and Tohu coordinated mass non-violent resistance to colonisation at Parihaka that later influenced Gandhi and King.¹ The Christian Women’s Temperance Union led the suffragette movement that made New Zealand the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1893. In more recent memory, theology students at St John’s Theological College coordinated flotillas that resisted nuclear warships entering Auckland Harbour and famously carried a cross onto the rugby pitch during an All Blacks match to protest the Springbok tour during apartheid-era South Africa.

Common Grace Aotearoa seeks to build on this Christian heritage to equip and organise the church in New Zealand today – supporting those whom God is calling to step up into the mission field of transforming unjust structures. We were established in early 2023 to train, organise and mentor groups of people eager to learn why and how to transform unjust structures from a Christian perspective. As they learn by doing – in prayerful teams with supportive mentors – they develop the skills to organise and train their own communities, building the capacity of the wider church to participate in social movements for the common good.

We started Common Grace Aotearoa out of a discipleship gap – one we recognised in our own experience and believe is present in many parts of the post-Christendom West. Most mainline denominations would have a stated missional tradition of ‘faith in the public sphere’. Missional commitments to ‘transforming unjust structures’ are enshrined in frameworks such as the Anglican Five Marks of Mission² and the Presbyterian Five Faces of Mission.³ But in practice, we would suggest, many have far less confidence and competence in forming Christians to do this.

Church goers would be deeply familiar (if not always confident) with proclaiming the gospel, and churches are old hands at providing spaces for teaching and nurturing people in faith. Many, too, respond to human needs through local initiatives such as food banks, playgroups and homeless shelters. All crucial ways of outworking mission. But what of the call to transform unjust structures? Some churches may have set aside a sermon or two a year on social justice, or donate to missional organisations that work in international development or poverty alleviation. Perhaps historically a denomination might have had a social justice role or committee that could write policy submissions, and denominational leaders might put out statements into the ether and hope they make an impact. 

Worthy as these are, these expressions feel increasingly insufficient in a world that is increasingly unstable. They don’t equip the everyday church goer to address the structural causes of poverty, the industrial roots of environmental degradation, or the entanglement of land and law that has embedded colonial systems in lands such as Aotearoa New Zealand.

So the problem, as we see it, is that there are very few missional ‘containers’ for Christians to transform unjust structures as an expression of everyday faith, and even fewer spaces to be discipled into doing so. The church is therefore not meeting its potential to alleviate injustice, make holistic disciples, or serve as a witness to the world. Common Grace Aotearoa seeks to step into this gap with a threefold mission: to achieve tangible change in Aotearoa’s social and environmental injustices through strategic advocacy campaigns in the areas of climate change, inequality and indigenous rights; to equip local churches to be a gracious and compassionate voice in the public sphere; and to develop a generation of Christian leaders with a commitment to faith-driven advocacy and action.

Prophetic responses: speaking truth to power

One way we’ve sought to build the church’s capacity in systemic action is to act as a bridge between grassroots social movements and the slower-moving church institutions – drawing on trusted relationships with church leaders and the established networks of denominations to activate the church’s voice with real impact. 

In the area of Treaty relations, indigenous rights have come under sustained political pressure in recent years in New Zealand.⁴ When the controversial Treaty Principles Bill was introduced that sought to redefine the rights guaranteed to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi, it demanded a structural response from the church. Common Grace was newly formed, led by two non-Māori, without perfect relationships or deep existing credibility in this space. But in conversation with key partners, we discerned a clear invitation to help mobilise the church to meet the moment.

Over 600 church leaders signed our open letter on the Treaty Principles Bill, attracting major coverage across all national news outlets, dominating headlines, and helping shift the narrative of what it was morally acceptable for the New Zealand government to support.⁵

Similarly, this Easter, in response to legislation that would effectively criminalise rough sleeping and begging in New Zealand city centres, we worked with eight church denominations to hold a Palm Sunday overnight vigil opposite Parliament. Hundreds gathered for public worship and liturgy. The vigil was broadcast on breakfast television to the nation, and government ministers were compelled to respond.⁶

When the church is activated in its prophetic role – to speak truth to power – there is a genuine public space for Christian witness that not only holds decision-makers to account but articulates what God’s kingdom values look like, and invites the wider public in.

Equipping the local church for systemic action

While Common Grace initially sought to mobilise the ‘activist edge’ of the church, we have come to see that a significant part of our mission is inviting the mainstream ‘centre church’ into education and action. Where there might be one or two passionate justice advocates in a local church, if we can equip them – or their church leader – to bring the wider congregation through an accessible invitation to learn about an issue and have clear ways to respond, the uptake has been remarkable.

One way we have done so is by producing accessible, scalable resources for churches and small groups to help connect their faith to how the Treaty can be honoured in central and local government. Our ‘Treaty 101’ course has reached thousands of people across more than 350 churches of all denominations, equipping these groups for courageous conversations about honouring indigenous rights in New Zealand and to respond to key political moments.⁷

Another has been to mobilise submissions on key policy proposals. We have been able to flood the Electricity Authority – the independent regulator of New Zealand’s electricity sector – with submissions from adults and children after Sunday services, leading the Authority to agree to a full suite of consumer protection reforms rather than the more limited set proposed by power companies.⁸ We delivered over 1,000 handwritten prayers and submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill and contributed over half the submissions to the government’s draft climate action plan.

The mobilising capacity of the church at these key moments rests on the key social infrastructure of the Sunday service. There are few other spaces in New Zealand society where hundreds of locations across the country gather people of all backgrounds and generations, in person, every week. In a fractured, online-heavy and highly individualised political culture, the church as a social organisation still holds enormous potential.

This is especially true given the somewhat unique demographic of the aging mainline denominations. During countrywide referendums on whether to disestablish Māori representation on local councils, activist groups whose networks oriented around urban, younger populations struggled to reach the people who consistently turn out to vote in New Zealand regions. We were among the few organisations capable of reaching that base – to educate and inform over 100 churches in referendum areas and counter the disinformation flooding their communities.

The church has also served wider social movements directly. During the national Hīkoi mō te Tiriti – the historic march for honouring New Zealand’s founding Treaty – up to 100,000 people converged on Wellington, a city of 210,000. Over 20 churches offered to host and feed groups travelling down for the hīkoi, providing connection points that crossed cultures and social worlds in ways few other organisations could.

Developing and discipling Christian leaders

Through working with small volunteer teams, both online and in person, Common Grace seeks to build community and equip emerging Christian leaders to find their vocation in social justice – developing the skills, character and confidence to lead advocacy campaigns as an expression of their faith.

Our campaign teams are the primary space where emerging activists learn the craft of advocacy by doing it. Teams meet weekly or fortnightly to progress campaigns together, with semi-regular training for volunteers. Leadership formation includes engaging church leaders, convening community gatherings, meeting with politicians, and learning to speak faithfully in the public square.

Recognising that some campaign team members lacked an intentional discipleship space beyond Sunday services, we developed a pilot discipleship programme. Alongside the campaign teams, the discipleship group meets online to explore the intersection of Christian faith and social justice – a space we have found is needed for those disillusioned with institutional expressions of church. The formation content helps participants grapple with theologies of justice and activism, supported by reflective practices, spiritual tools and in-person retreats. So far, these have fostered deep personal growth and unexpected community. Participants have demonstrated greater faith, hope and a clearer sense of calling – affirming the value of integrating discipleship with justice advocacy.

The great social movements of the past were not secular projects that Christians occasionally supported. In many cases, they were movements shaped, sustained and often led by people of faith who understood justice as inseparable from the gospel. That same calling has not expired. In a moment of deepening inequality, climate crisis and the unfinished work of honouring the Treaty of Waitangi, the church in Aotearoa New Zealand has a vital role to play – not as a chaplain to the status quo, but as an active participant in movements for lasting, structural change. Common Grace Aotearoa exists to help the church rise to that calling.

About the author

Alex Johnston is a co-director and co-founder of Common Grace Aotearoa. He currently lives in Whanganui, New Zealand, on the lands of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi with his wife Genevieve and their two daughters.

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Notes

1. Parihaka was a 19th-century Māori settlement in New Zealand that became a powerful symbol of peaceful resistance, when its prophet leaders Te Whiti o Rongorangi and Tohu Kākahi led their people in nonviolent civil disobedience against colonial land confiscation only to be met with the invasion of over 1,500 government troops in 1881. Te Whiti and Tohu were deeply shaped by early Christian missionary contact – they drew heavily on biblical stories to frame their philosophy of nonviolent resistance, and their methods of civil disobedience were said to have later influenced Gandhi and Dr King. (See New Zealand History, ‘Te rā o te pāhua – invasion of pacifist settlement at Parihaka’, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/te-ra-o-te-pahua-invasion-pacifist-settlement-parihaka) ︎
2. The Anglican Five Marks of Mission: https://www.anglicancommunion.org/five-marks-of-mission/ ︎
3. The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’s five ‘faces’ of mission: https://www.presbyterian.org.nz/about-us ︎
4. The Treaty of Waitangi – Te Tiriti o Waitangi – was an international Treaty signed in 1840 between the British Crown and over 500 Māori leaders that affirmed key rights of Māori tribal groupings’ existing sovereignty, while allowing a limited form of government by Queen Victoria over the small settler population. It is a key constitutional document for New Zealand, but was later disregarded in law and policy and a colonial form of Western parliamentary sovereignty was imposed over Māori people and lands. Since the 1970s, civil resistance movements have secured key legal recognition of the Treaty and its principles in law as incremental moves towards Treaty reconciliation were conceded by successive governments. ︎
5. See, for example: RNZ website, ‘Treaty Principles Bill: 440 Christian leaders sign open letter asking MPs to vote no’, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/527412/treaty-principles-bill-440-christian-leaders-sign-open-letter-asking-mps-to-vote-no. 440 had signed the letter at time of release. Subsequently over 600 leaders signed on. ︎
6. See a clip of news coverage on the Common Grace Aotearoa Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/commongraceaotearoa/videos/sunday-nights-vigil-for-compassionate-solutions-to-homelessness-was-a-powerful-c/1129977082583123/ ︎
7. Belonging in This Land: Treaty Basics from a Christian Perspective, https://www.treatyandbelonging.nz/ ︎
8. Electricity Authority, “Updating and strengthening the consumer care guidelines” (February 2024) ︎

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Here I am: prayerful presence

by Ian Adams

Take a moment. Turn aside. Breathe deep.

As pioneers we have a natural inclination and capacity to move quickly and boldly, to do what we dream, to make things happen, to bring change. This, of course, is all potentially very good. What a gift. What a task. What a privilege!

But to enable such action to be truly good and holy, perhaps the most important first step we can make as changemakers, pioneers, fringe dwellers and midwives of the new is to commit ourselves to a stance of ever-deepening prayerful presence; to being humbly attentive to God and to the people with whom we are living and working.

If we are to join in God’s unfolding movement to heal and renew all things, that unfolding, healing and renewal must first begin to take shape in us.

Prayerful presence as a stance – indeed as a way of being – cannot be achieved quickly. Nor can it be completed once and for all. It is a daily task, and a lifetime’s work. But thankfully that task and work is not just down to us.

Land, sea and sky-scapes open up slowly.

We need to settle into a place with humility and curiosity, to begin to see what truly is. The attention required takes time, persistence and, I suggest, love.

This realisation came to me a few years ago when, for the first time in my life, I lived in a rural setting. Repeatedly walking the same paths in woods, through fields, by the estuary, at either end of the working day, in all seasons, I gradually began to notice what I had not seen before, and to sense my belonging there.

I’ve since learned that the same pattern is true of urban contexts. The photographs for this article were all taken in and around Firestone Bay in Plymouth Sound. Most days when I am here, I will come to the bay. I’ll get a coffee, greet people I am getting to know, walk, sit and take photos. Like any city it has a gritty quality, but also great beauty.

And it has become for me a great teacher. Drawing me into slowing down, into noticing, into enjoying the place, into thanking the Creator God, and into celebrating the people who gather there. It has become for me a place of prayerful presence, encouraging me to continue to nurture that stance wherever I am.

How might we make prayerful presence our way of being?

Here is one possible pattern, drawing on a resource recently created for the CMS movement, addressing the possibility of prayerful presence: Pray in the Holy Spirit: Five Principles for a Mission Spirituality.

Prayerful presence

Usually and understandably, prayer begins with our words. Our own experience needs to be brought to God in prayer. Words of sorrow and regret, words of anger and disappointment, words of yearning and praise. All belong. And they are vital. We need to articulate and voice our experience to God who loves us. This is the beginning of prayer.

But a vital new possibility will emerge if, having spoken our words, we can allow ourselves then to become faithfully silent. To let go of our words. To step, fall or let go into prayerful presence, seeking to become present to God who is always present to us. To embody that repeating biblical stance “Here I am”, with open hearts and open hands.

Prayerful presence is the vital starting point for the nurturing of mission and community, a stance to which, I suggest, we must continually return. This takes practice and persistence.

Reflection: How might I begin or deepen a practice of prayerful presence? What might that look like?

God’s work, our assent

As the pattern of voicing words and then letting them go becomes more familiar to us, we may encounter a growing realisation that the work of prayer is actually, primarily, the movement of the Holy Spirit within us. It’s not just down to us.

Recall what it’s like to swim in the sea. Our hesitant entrance into the water, the cold hitting us, our gasped words, our attempts just to breathe, and then to stay afloat.

But gradually we may realise that the sea – both vast and intimate – is doing the real work, not us. And if we can allow that to be so, we float, held in water, bathed in shimmering light.

If we explore this as a motif for the spiritual life, imagine with me an invitation to enter into the deep ocean of God’s love. Each step from shore into sea requires our assent and commitment.

But through that assent, in God’s grace, change happens. A gradual deepening of love for God and for the people with whom we are working. This change is being accomplished in us by God.

Reflection: What might be the changes, however apparently small, that God is bringing about in me at this time? How might I step deeper “from shore into sea”?

Prayerful guides

Slowly, over a long period of time, the sense may grow that, in the grace of God, we are undergoing some quiet and profound transformation, becoming closer to the likeness of Jesus Christ, both in our prayer and in our action.

On this journey towards transformation, we all benefit from the help of prayerful and wise guides. The experience, prayer and company of fellow pilgrims, past and present, can be amazing gifts to us as we seek to deepen in love for God and for people.

The Aspen community is already proving to be a rich source of encouragement in our sharing of experiences and in our prayers for each other.

The CMS Presence project is similarly inciting deeper faith, hope and love, with a particular emphasis on nurturing the life of prayerful presence.  

And the practice of spiritual direction and other means of personal accompaniment are particularly valuable, enabling us to draw on the wisdom of prayerful guides, and a means by which our true guide, the Holy Spirit, may work within us.

Reflection: Who are my pilgrim guides? Might it be good for me to explore spiritual direction or similar accompaniment?

Intercession

From a place of prayerful presence our engagement with our contexts will be more profound, shaping our actions – and our prayers.

Intercessory prayer has a vital role to play in our mission spirituality, helping us to discern God’s presence and activity in our world, giving a vital outward momentum to our prayerful journey.

As pioneers of prayerful presence I suggest that it is important that we commit to pray with and for the edges on and around which we live and work.

It is important too to recognise that our shared prayers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are a vital element in the earthly-heavenly struggle for righteousness and the coming of God’s kingdom. Every prayer is part of that struggle.

One of my pilgrim guides – the 14th-century English mystic Julian of Norwich – gives us this powerful insight regarding intercessory prayer:

“God’s love is so great that he regards us as partners in his good work; and so he moves us to pray for what it pleases him to do.”

Let us pray for what it pleases God to do where we are!

Reflection: How might understanding prayer as partnering in God’s good work be a gift? How might I pray with and for the people and places in which I live and work?

Kind and Curious

In the CMS Presence project we have learned that as Christians we share many common experiences in the nature of encounter with God in prayer. We have also learned that the prayer experiences of other Christians may differ from our own.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is not confined by our preferences or limitations. Jesus Christ always meets us where we are, but always draws us on. Our journeys will bear similarities with others’, but each of us has a unique story, through which the Christ of the Emmaus Road seeks to engage with us.

‘Jesus himself came near and went with them.’ Luke 24:15

This recognition encourages us to nurture great love and respect for the prayer traditions of the Church over the centuries. It calls also for kindness and curiosity, generosity and humility from us when we encounter something not familiar from our own tradition, as we seek to encourage each other in prayerful presence.

Reflection: What have been my most helpful experiences in the practice of prayer? Is there another great prayer tradition of the Church that I might explore?

Here I am

A powerful story from Exodus may be a particular gift at this time.

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus. 3:1–4)

Much of our life and work seems to call us to the fringes of society and culture, even to be “beyond the wilderness”. With Moses, and in the grace of God, may we have the courage to live with prayerful presence, to turn aside to the bushes of God’s presence that are blazing all around us, and to embody the prayer “Here I am.”

About the author

Ian Adams is mission spirituality lead at CMS. He is a spiritual director, and with Gail Adams leads retreats. Ian shares his photography and writing at Still the Light Shines on Instagram and Substack, and his books are published by Canterbury Press. Contact Ian at ian.adams@churchmissionsociety.org

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