2020 has been a crazy year with events that no-one would have expected or predicted. We last posted here almost three years ago to the day sharing how 2018 was the start of us becoming “settlers” after a time of journeying. We had been led to a new community where we felt called to love and serve both the gathered congregation and the people who live in the local area, and at the time had envisaged that we would remain part of that community indefinitely.2020 gave us time and space to reflect on all aspects of our life, and we started to get a sense that God was once again asking us to start a new journey. Or perhaps finish the old one that we started in 2017:
Over the last few months, we have sensed God’s prompting to do something different. A call to journey with him in a different way. To explore how we can be church with those who find church unappealing. To think about different expressions of Christian community.
Becoming Voyagers (May 2017)
Our new Church community had been fun. We had made new friends, seen God do some amazing things in people’s lives and the wider community. We had been learning loads. But we had also got caught up in the mechanics of doing Church. It was a different place, a different group of people. But it was the same, not a different expression of Church.
We began to wonder if rather than this being the place for us to settle, it was a pit-stop on the journey. A place for us to give and receive. A learning place. That we might be there for a season which was coming to an end. That our work there might be done.
Reflecting back on Abraham’s journey in Genesis, before God called Abraham to “go to the place I will show you”, his father had set out from Ur to Canaan but settled at Haran. (Genesis 11:26-32). Had we settled too early? We were starting to get restless and realised that we are at heart pioneers, not settlers (yet). So, with all the trepidation that voyaging entails we said farewell (virtually) to the worshipping community in August 2020.
What does the future look like? We don’t yet know! We have been exploring, praying, reading. And the one thing of our 2017 vision that has been in particular focus is about journeying with God in a new way. We are about to start a year of preparation as we explore taking vows in the Order of the Mustard Seed – a dispersed Monastic Community linked to the 24/7 Prayer Movement. A new way of discipleship. Following a rule of life. Being committed in our relationship to God, kind to others and taking the Gospel to the nations.
We have renewed excitement about the new things God was been putting on our hearts, and where he might be leading us to serve Him in the future, and we’ll be writing more about that in the coming months.