Ideas on Rhythms of Loving Resistance

Here's a great clip from Mark Van Steenwyk over at JesusManifesto.com (click the image for original article) -

So…what does it actually LOOK like to embody an alternative? How do we lovingly resist the Powers as we invite people to move into God’s Kingdom? This is a big question. For all the books Brazos Press puts out, very few deal with practical realities. The recent books about New Monasticism and the works of folks like Shane Claiborne help scratch that itch, but still more work needs to be done in imagining tangible realities. Here’s an introductory list of practices/activities/experiments that help develop a communal life of loving resistance. If two or more people were to engage in the following sorts of things together as a regular practice, it would go much further than a mountain of rhetoric and challenge the status quo more than voting:
proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ
tithe relationally
discerningly engage in civil disobedience
confess your sins to one another, and proclaim forgiveness
live communally
establish regular rhythms of prayer with others (here’s a nifty and free resource)
thoughtfully participate in the Lord’s Supper
be family with people that are in a different socio-economic and/or ethnic situation than you
get in the way of violence
plant a garden (for extra credit, practice guerrilla gardening)
spend less money
spend justly
or just don’t spend money at all
ride a bicycle or take the bus
draw attention to the sins of society
lovingly challenge the sins of the Church
invite strangers to dinner
have a guest room open to those in need
practice mutual submission
read Scripture in community and struggle together to put it into practice
practice communal discernment
embrace a sense of place in ministry
learn the stories of marginalized people…especially your brothers and sisters in the developing world
pray for political authorities
share good things with the poor
give the wealthy (including yourself) an opportunity to divest of their wealth
remember, in all things love

I have added the The Missio Dei Breviary to the sidebar

Pattern

So... at the recent Guantanamo planning sesh this week I shared an idea about how we might get a few more things in the diary. At least we want to get some more monthly 'traditional', if I can use that word, engage meets sorted. But I was meaning a bit wider than that.

I mean things that we want to do/feel moved to do/can do. For me it was a lot to do with having the freedom (both of form and from fear of failure) to do stuff that would start to create a bit of structure or pattern to life. I like the simple image above, the way there is progress, contracting and growing, blossoming and letting go etc etc (maybe just me!)

My life is to often structured and patterned around consumption and the means of consumption - buying stuff, gobbling up experiences, slogging away to give me the chance to do it all. I don't like the way consumption can so easily become the spirograph logic of my everyday (every week, month, year - they all blur to one) existence.

I desire, in the spirit of new monasticism*, a 'rule' of life that patterns my living around: confession and communion, health and hospitality, silence and service, growth and good works.

I want to do this grounded in real life, the spiritually of the everyday as well as the numinous moments. To do it within the full spectrum of global Christian heritage but also to allow the dreaming of new futures. Enabling creative engagement with the world and faithful improvision within it.

I also don't want to do it alone (as if you could fully do all that above alone!) I want to do it in some form of community - an embracing community of common work that invites, welcomes and values the presence and voices of outsiders (both people starting from outside the way of Jesus and those that the Jesus way teaches us to love and be with, the social and economic outsiders).

So here's my question(s), for those interested in this kind of thing, do we find these things in churches and other wider networks already doing these things very well or do we, if we feel moved to, get on with doing some elements of this ourselves and just see what happens?

Do we plan and structure some of this in or be more organic about it?

If I were to quickly sketch out a sample monthly pattern it might look like this -

• Mosaic/Worship - First 'xxxday' of the month (various styles of worship/liturgy/meditation etc, venues? poss outside?)
• Action - Second 'xxxday' of the month (taking action (direct action?))
• Eat - Third 'xxxday' of the month (open meal (open communion?) to share with friends (poor friends?)
• Story - Forth 'xxxday' of the month (getting together around the scriptures)
• Chill/Party - Fifth 'xxxday' when it happens (enjoying things that are good (like beer!)
• I also liked 'Art' (watching, listening, touching, making?, and lots of other things)

Anyway...! That all sounds a bit much from where we are now and its just an idea but what do you think?

The restoration of the Church will surely come from a kind of new monasticism, which has in common with the old kind only the uncompromising nature of life according to the Sermon on the Mount, following Christ. I think that it is about time go gather the people for this….Dietrich Bonhoeffer

* “new monasticism,” Four suggested characteristics: (1) it will be “marked by a recovery of the telos of this world” revealed in Jesus, and aimed at the healing of fragmentation, bringing the whole of life under the lordship of Christ; (2) it will be aimed at the “whole people of God” who live and work in all kinds of contexts, and not create a distinction between those with sacred and secular vocations; (3) it will be disciplined, not by a recovery of old monastic rules, but by the joyful discipline achieved by a small group of disciples practicing mutual exhortation, correction, and reconciliation; and (4) it will be “undergirded by deep theological reflection and commitment,” by which the church may recover its life and witness in the world. Jonathan R. Wilson, Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World

E.g's

UK-

http://homepage.mac.com/markjohnberry/safe-space/index.html

http://northumbriacommunity.org/WhoWeAre/whoweareAnewMonasticism.htm

US-

http://www.newmonasticism.org/who/who.php

http://www.missio-dei.com/

AU

http://msainfo.org/articles/peace-tree-community/