BE THOU MY BREASTPLATE - 40 Days of Giving

 your Life to God the Celtic Way!

‘Incarnational prayer is central to Christian formation; and this serene, superb, little book is both a rich gift to the Church and a great assist in that endeavor…[this book is] so worthy of any and every good thing I could say.”

Phyllis Tickle - compiler, The Divine Hours

Be Thou My Breastplate is available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Tescos Online etc.

THE NEW MONASTIC

Seductive in the way it draws us gently

into some of time’s deepest currents.

Phyllis Tickle - Publishers’ weekly

The New Monastic is available from www.oaktara.com Amazon, Barnes&Noble etc

REVIEWS OF PAUL’S LATEST BOOKS

by Bessie Pereira Director of OIKOS Australia

THE NEW MONASTIC

published by OakTara

 

At the end of [his new book The New Monastic] Paul Wallis hopes that the story of [his character] Ben Anthony will “entertain and encourage you, praying especially that it will inspire fresh courage in anyone who feels they have paid a price for being as slow as Ben Anthony was in catching on to the exciting, earth-shattering, and church-changing call of today’s new monastic”.

Entertaining it certainly is. The book is written in an engaging style that pulls you into the story….the unfolding transitions through which Ben Anthony battled and triumphed. Ben Anthony’s experiences as leader of a successful independent Pentecostal work sandwiched between significant stints in the Anglican Church as priest, were the backdrop to a roller coaster ride of triumph and trauma in which God fashioned him for His future.

Many people I know amongst our readers would identify with so many of scenarios and the effects that Paul has described in Ben Anthony’s story. How these were worked through is told with such clarity and realism that many readers could be mightily encouraged to press on in similar difficulties. Although grim experiences are explained, even to the point where Ben Anthony was ‘without reputation and without a job’, there is also a sense of ‘well that is how it was and God used it’, plus smatterings of clever humour throughout. Ultimately there is the triumph of Ben Anthony’s call to begin a work which is radical and rooted in today’s world, and yet ancient in essence - that of a monasticism that vibrates in the 21st century.

Ben Anthony had been profoundly impacted by Hebrews 11:28 and12:1. The reality of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ that we are surrounded by and the call to ‘press on’ resonated with him. His ‘pressing on’ led him to ‘chain-reading’ the lives of many in this ‘cloud of witnesses’ in the Bible as well as those of many of the saints down through church history. He was profoundly influenced by monastics like Aidan and Hilda in Britain, John of the Cross and Teresa in Spain, Sophrony in Greece, John Climacus in Syria, and Benedict and Scholastica, Francis and Clare in Italy. His search, however, didn’t only lead him back into history, but also forward into radical movements in Britain and South America where he experienced present day examples of pledged church movements either on the edge or outside hierarchical structures. His experience in the Base Ecclesial Communities in Brazil had a deep affect on him.

At the end of the book are meditations based on each chapter in turn. These could be wonderfully used in groups, but also effectively for individual reflection. They comprise some Bible references, a paragraph or two guiding reflection on the chapter and suggestions for a response in prayer. I found these very enjoyable (Yes - enjoyable! They were challenging also!)

I would encourage those who are interested in the reasons why these New Monastic movements are emerging in the Western world to read this book because it strikes at the root [through] the ground level realities that one person faced and the avenues that God used to draw him towards that which he discovered was also drawing many in our day.

I would encourage those who think that these monastics are withdrawing from the world, or that they are harking back to something that is outdated and irrelevant [to read this book.] Described in this book are the counter-cultural, Kingdom focused realities that these groups are living out as singles, marrieds, families and across age differences regardless of church background.

I would encourage home churches to read this book. Not only will it broaden one’s understanding of the wide scope of the ways of God in forming His church in our day, an appreciation of the ‘cloud of witnesses down through the ages, but also this book deals in an engaging way, the nitty-gritties of ways of church that will encourage many to move on from traditional ways of church towards a fresh approach.

This book comes with endorsements from Phyllis Tickle, well-known amongst New Monastics, and also Tony and Felicity Dale of House2House, well known to our OIKOS readers.

Good work Paul. Congratulations from OIKOS.

“Be Thou My Breastplate - Forty

Days of Giving Your Life to God

the Celtic Way”

By Paul Wallis (Published - Mowbray/Continuum & Paulist Press)

Paul introduces his book thus - “The ancient Celtic Christians had a uniquely powerful way of giving their lives to God. It was called the Breastplate Prayer (or Lorica). As the name implies, it was a prayer invoking God’s blessing and protection on the life of the one who prayed it. Symbolically the ancient Celts would use such a prayer to rededicate to God every part of their physical body and every aspect of their daily life. A few of these prayers, so loved by our spiritual ancestors, have survived to this day. One of the most powerful was the Breastplate of Fursa. Its author, Fursa, was an evangelist, church planter and founder of monastic communities in Ireland, England and France. History records that he penned these 11 brief lines of prayer some time in the early seventh century. Today his prayer is still powerful.”

The book has forty daily readings gradually taking us through the prayer. There are guides at the back of the book for group sharing and for a weekend retreat. I am looking forward to working my way through this book this coming Lent.

The Breastplate of Fursa

May the yoke of the Law of God be upon this shoulder,

The coming of the Holy Spirit on this head,

The sign of Christ on this forehead,

The hearing of the Holy Spirit in these ears,

The smelling of the Holy Spirit in this nose.

The vision that the people of heaven have be in these eyes,

The speech of the people of heaven in this mouth,

The work of the Church of God in these hands

The good of God and of neighbour in these feet.

May God dwell in this heart,

And this person belong entirely to God the Father.

For the full reviews click on the OIKOS tab and follow the links.    

 

THE NEW MONASTICISM

A SUMMARY OF PAUL’S TALK AT THE RECENT “NEW MONASTICISM” CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE ANABAPTIST ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND IN MELBOURNE

“Communities of the Kingdom - The New Monasticism” was the title of the AAANZ bi-annual conference held this year in Melbourne. It was a FANTASTIC conference - thanks to Bessie Pereira and the team. The Christianity it gave witness to was the most layered, affirming and challenging of any conference I have known. It gathered together people from communities and streams which had never met before. Yet the overlap and agreement was amazing. Many of us have been journeying to a similar place from all kinds of different start points. For many of us it was our first encounter with Christians who use the “A” word. (anabaptist - that is!)

Back in the 1500s the Anabaptists were often called “new monastics” (it was not meant as a compliment) so perhaps it’s not surprising that we found tremendous agreement between people of the Mennonite/Amish/Hutterite traditions and those of entirely new and fresh expressions of church in close community. Many in todays’ churches are hungry for closer community. And many new expressions of Church around the world are learning to draw upon the wisdom and witness of the monastic traditions of the Body of Christ.

A small delegation was there to represent Jesus Generation and it was inspring to learn more of the wider context of our own journey as a  network.

Due to an RSI injury I’ll have to be brief in my summary. So here’s a quick run-down: I was asked to speak about “New Monastic” phenomena from a UK perspective. Unlike the States the UK has produced no “official summary” of a new monastic movement, and so I allowed myself a bit more latitude in approaching the topic. In my main lecture I spoke about how discovering the roots of radical, holistic church-planting in Amazonia led me to completely alter my view and inform my understanding of the nature and role monastic traditions within the Church. The radicalism and holism of the Amazonian Base Christian Communities were derived directly from the ”missional DNA” of the monks and nuns who catalysed and midwifed them into existence. I then unpacked some of the central features of monastic life in the UK/Europe through the centuries:

Peer-to-peer rcommunity - a rejection of people’s worldly rank - though not without order within the monasteries everyone was first and foremeost a “brother” or a “sister”

Different economic behaviour

Local autonomy + central value of Scripture resulting in a reforming role in the wider church

Holistic faith - the “Worship Service” was just a part of a balanced and shared rhythm of life - and a multi-layered relationship to the wider community
Different Economic Behaviour - common purse, and a balanced approach to work, driven by a bias to self-sufficiency rather than to acquisition 

Founded on Agreements/Pledges
The size of Primary Groups
Careful separation of Accountability not Authority

 

I also unpacked that pre 1536 monastic communities in the UK embraced many kinds of people and layers of commitment - noting that that model of monasticism was a model of multi-layered community, with a multi-layered relationship with the wider community and commonly had room for married people, & families as well as celibates. I then unpacked six trends within the UK church-scene (the UK church scene was my brief) which have moved diverse groups of people into neo-monastic and quasi monastic expressions of church.

 

1) The revival of retreating - which has led to a mushrooming of Asssociate Members and Retreatants at traditional monastic communtieis

2) The recovery of Christian heritage  - which has led to patterns of church deliberately emulating the models of church community which mothered and fathered the British Church in the beginning

3) Post-modern patterns of reading - through which forms of Associate Membership have developed sharing a quasi-monastic rhtyhm of life

4) Renewal in churches altering people’s lifestyle choices  - leading to co-housing, ministry through hospitality, greater accountability through closer communtity, and different economic behaviour.

5) Pragmatic community as a means to mission. Examples of these from the 60s (eg English l’Abri) are beginning to realise parallels between their patterns and disciplines and the classic monastic rhtyhms of life 

6) the special grace of Christian group-housing - noting a wide variety of group-houses that have developed into effective missional and church units. Patterns of life and commitment have grown up as groups have together sensed God’s blessing, anointing and call on their residential expression of church-life.

 

These trends have been variously contemplative, historical, missiological, and pragmatic. They have sometimes been arrived at simply through groups of believers following the leading of the Spirit without quite knowing where they were headed.

 

I finished by noting that the term “new Monastic” can be something of a red-herring. Many groups might be described that way who wouldn’t think to use such a label. And for some of us whose patterns and hopes are consciously rooted in monastic heritage would find the label to claim too much for our own patterns of church. It is also a label similar to “Anabaptist” in the sense that gradually a person or group might discover that it to be a label that describe their journey with the Lord! So rather than focus on the term let us look and listen for the forever new thing that God is doing and seek to follow the ways that He blesses. Amen.

Watch this space for links for video and audio files from the conference. Meanwhile the time has come to get your order in for your copy of Paul’s latest literary offering “The New Monastic” - an exploration of the many and diverse routes by which contemporary believers are arriving at neo, quasi and full-on monastic expressions of church - but all done through STORY. Full of drama, suspense, cliff-hangers and humour. To order your copy I recommend Amazon UK & US and Christianbook.com. Enjoy!

 

Is it any coincidence that those saints through history who gave themselves to voluntary poverty for the sake of the Gospel were also people with a strong appreciation of God’s creation, and considered themsleves rich if they could enjoy the natural beauty of a field, river or forest? I’m thinking of people like Seraphim of Sarov or Fursa of Norfolk or Francis of Assisi?

Similarly when Jesus wanted to move our attention away from the superficial and material things which often consume us, it was to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field that he pointed. There is something profound in this switch of attention.

I remember my friend Phil Steer telling me about his little girl’s ability to draw delight from the most elemental things in God’s creation; the excitement of finding “yellow” or “triangle” in the world around her. It brought to mind something of the joy-filled spirituality of Francis of Assisi. It was for this that Francis’ neighbours referred to him and his “little brothers” as “the happy people”.

It was this ability to love life that attracted thousands of young people into the ranks of the “little brothers” and “Poor Clares” in the 1200s. When we think and talk about attracting others or living contagiously it is worth thinking about how we might nurture this gift of delight that made the very demanding lives of some of our monastic forbears so attractive to their contemporaries. So why not take a friend for a walk and go looking for yellow!

 

Michael Hyatt, CEO of ThomasNelson wrote recently in his blog www.michaelhyatt.com/fromwhereisit/2008/10/silver-bullet-t.html?cid=134343305#comment-134343305 wrote about the problems of “silver-bullet thinking”. He wrote: “In the Western literary tradition, the silver bullet was the only weapon that could destroy certain types of monsters. As a result, it became the metaphor for a singular solution that solves a gigantic problem.”

Michael then goes on to unpack the issue from the point of view of the business world.

I find “Silver-bullet thinking” is a helpful way of describing our appetite for single-layer solutions to multi-layered problems. Over the years I think I have seen a lot of silver-bullet thinking in the Church. I have been enormously enriched by what church growth, the cell movement, charismatic renewal, DAWN, Alpha and other sources have contributed to the life of the Church, but one by one I have seen them often presented in some circles as the “great white hope” or to use the phrase; the “silver bullet”.

Needless to say, people get burned-out by this cataclysmic approach to the Church’s journey of faith. A couple of years ago I was at a meeting of denominational leaders. These senior pastors shared a very layered, detailed and nuanced understanding of the challenges facing the churches. The disconnect between our church-world and the culture of our wider community was, we agreed, a complex and multi-layered problem. The group’s understanding of the issues at hand was impressive, honest, wide-ranging and thorough. Yet the response for which this same meeting voted; to bring Evangelist N to town to hold a crusade to convert the unchurched and pep up the pastors! To me the complete disconnect between the analysis and the response was astounding. Evidently that silver-bullet mind-set takes a lot more than understanding to shake-off. To bring a multi-layered response to a multi-layered problem actually requires an emotional ability to act and react through long periods of uncertainty and irresolution. Any long-term strategy requires that psychological skill. Without that skill any lasting endeavour - be that the nurturing of a business, the shepherding of a church, or ones own walk with God - will find itself prematurely burned out. You might like to take a look at what Michael Hyatt has to say in applying this lesson to the world of business. Just like the phrase “the emperor’s new clothes” does, “silver-bullet thinking” gives a name to a complex psychology which so often afflicts us - and makes it a little easier to get a handle on. And as for new things in the life of the Church, why not simply receive and enjoy the good of each contribution for what it’s worth rather than setting it up to disappoint.

I was talking with Tim Hoeksema on Shapevine recently about the experience of having to reprogram ones leadership paradigm. Examples of my own re-programing would include.

1) I was taught: “You can’t have friends within your church.” Now I note that six of Jesus twelve were friends before they were disciples/apostles. That encourages me to see discipleship as a kind of friendship.

2) I was taught “Don’t let your people get too close,” now I note that a NT elder should have a hospitable home (I Tim 3.2, Titus1.8), that others should know their leader well enough to “consider the outcome of their way of life” (Heb 13.7) and to be able to say “yes” when, like Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (I think it was) we say “you know how we lived while we were among you”.

3) I was taught to “never set yourself up as an example”. I cetrainly agree that leadership whose central message is “be like me” is worrying. However I also think that if you’re not leading by example then you’re not leading, you’re merely pointing. Apostle Paul said “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” That’s the apostolic way.I think that’s important - that a Christian leader needs to be less a director and more a modeller. To be a leader you have to “do” and “be” according to the word and call of God in Christ, and then allow others to join in. In this vane, I was very struck by a seemingly incidental phrase I read one day about Francis of Assisi’s ministry. It said “While he was doing this, others came, joined him, and learned his way of life…”

4) I worry about a trend in the way we train and form young people especially where we teach them about “leading” ahead of “doing this”. It is as if we are conceding that leadership is more motivating than actually doing the stuff. (Hence the often very fast recycling of Youth Group members into Youth Leaders.) Surely there’s a middle step where we actually do the stuff. And isn’t that middle step really the main step?!

I like that phrase “While he was doing this others came, joined him and learned his way of life.” I think that leadership is about how you share the “being and the doing” that God has called you to. In my own experience my work is centred on household-based church. Our network was pioneered quasi-independently by half a dozen guys who at different times had lived with me, observed “how I lived” and “considered the outcome of my way of life.”

5) In our network we have written out any sense of automatic authority so that we input into each others livesa nd work on the basis of friendship. As the Apostle Paul said to Philemon, “Although in Christ I have the right just to tell you what you ought to do, instead I will appeal to you on the basis of love.” I have had to learn that my role as a leader is much more about helping others do their thing and much less about making others do my thing!! This makes me realise that my “authority” is much more to do with my personal credibility than my “power to compel obedience.”

Having said all that, I think it is important that people recognise who the “elders” are or who their “pastor-teachers” are. In what we see in Acts, Paul, Peter and John’s writings in the NT there is no need to be apologetic about being clear about who is taking these roles. It’s clear in James 3.1 and Hebrews 13.17 that God makes a distinction. I don’t find a warrant in the NT for anarchy. But the themes I’ve mentioned above have been those aspects I have had to learn from scratch, on the hoof. Do they ring true for you?

A phenomenon I have noticed among pastors (like myself) hungry for fruit, is that we look at the methods and structures of church practiced by successful exemplars - say John Wesley or William Booth - and think that if we mimic their structures we will get their results. Often we fail to note that those structures were created in order to deal with the results not create them! We make often make church-structures the phenomenon rather than the epi-phenomenon.

What I am finding after twenty-three years of church-planting is that the skill I need to learn for myself (and hopefully model for others) is discipleship. And that is rooted in relationship. As I’ve said elsewhere, at least half of Jesus’ twelve were already friends, neighbours, business associates and siblings - before the layer of “disciple of Jesus” was added to the mix. The relationship came first. So being part of a communtiy and being befriendable and being sincere and skilled in making friends - to me those are the fundamental skills I/we need to learn. If people want to do stuff with you and hang out with you then you’ve got a start point for discipleship. If not then…erm…

I was reading a challenging post from Aaron Snow in Las Vegas just recently about what it might mean for us to be “desperate for God”. My reflection was that probably most of us are simply too invested in the status quo to be truly desperate for God. “Desperate” is made up of word-bits meaning the state of being without hope. I just want to make some very simple points about that:

i) You (fellow blog-readers) and I are at some levels (I stress) not “without hope” without God. We have skills, resources and opportunities that do not leave us without hope.

ii) A lot of Christians would actually feel very anxious even being around the kind of people who are truly “without hope” - not least because that kind of emotional / mental state often produces rash, dangerous, negative and anti-social behaviours that can be challenging to be around. iii) Sadly a lot of us - even us Christians - use the media (books, magazines, internet, theatre, films, music etc) to entertain but not to inform. A lot of the “news” we watch is built on holding an audience rather than educating the public as to what things are happening around the world. If we exposed ourselves to more of the brutal realities of life on planet earth I think more of us would be feeling desperate about our home country and about our world at large. We cannot insulate ourselves and cocoon ourselves away from the world and at the same time expect to be desperate for God. Yet so often that is what Christians use the media for - Christian TV, Christian magazines, Christian books, and Christian music even Christian games; put them all together and maybe combine them with Christian employment, and you have created an alternative world that will hide you away from the traumas of the wider world.iv) If, however, your weekly pattern of life constantly puts you alongside people who you know and believe on many levels to be “without hope” without God, your sense of urgency and dependency on God is more likely to grow; to become greater and sharper. When you confront yourself with needs that only God can meet, that’s when you cry out to him with a bit more heart.v) If we can use our accountability partnerships within the Christian community to push one another out of our cocoons and comfort zones, if we will share with each other stuff in our own lives and stuff in the media that confronts us with the reality of a world which desperately needs The Saviour then I believe we will feel a livelier sense of our dependence upon God.I was very struck just recently - I was working on a section about Francis of Assisi for my book The New Monastic - Francis was from a wealthy family with a great stake in the status quo. Like many of his peers Francis was used by his country as a Knight - meaning a soldier whose job was to kill or be killed in the wars of that time.Then, as now, many wars were fought with the ultimate goal of moving political and economic power from one party to another. The war Francis and his friends were sent on was fought in order to move more of the world’s wealth into the pockets of the already wealthy. It is very informative to realise that in the explosive growth of Francis’ revival movement, that first generation of recruits was composed chiefly of war-veterans who had returned home from overseas campaigns having been used, and maimed and many times seen their friends killed for the sake of these magnates and land barons. The great treasure the powerful were expending Francis and his peers for was control of the Middle East. They claimed they were doing it for the glory of God, but in the end it was all about who possessed what.The death of a friend has a powerful way of getting a person to review their beliefs and priorities in life. The war lent Francis and his friends that opportunity many times over.You can well imagine that Francis and his peers came back from these wars for land and possessions with a very different view of the power and pull of money and the very meaning of worldly wealth.

What they did next - joining Francis to live like beggars in order to do the apostolic ministry - tells us that they returned to Italy from the war in the Middle east not feeling like stakeholders in their country’s status quo and very jaded about what the world had to offer them. Only when they had had the ugly dynamic of human politics rubbed in their noses by the atrocity of that war did they wake up to the need to find a higher loyalty and a better life.

There are many people in the world today who for diverse reasons have been made as desperate as Francis’ peers were by the world of their time. If we are not feeling desperate and without hope in the world perhaps one of the best things we can do is REALLY LISTEN to those who are.

My Dinner with Anton (Wild Goose),

Men Behaving Boldly (SPCK),

Rough Ways in Prayer (SPCK),

God’s Radicals (OIKOS),

Be Thou My Breastplate - 40 days of giving your life to God the Celtic way (Continuum/Mowbray, & Paulist Press)

The New Monastic (OakTara) - Jan ‘09

Please pray with me for the new book projects…

WINNIE THE POOH’S GUIDE TO HAPPINESS!

currently being reviewed by Penguin-Putnam U.S.

and Ruth Wallis’ BEEFLET THE BEETLE series for young readers currently being reviewed by Brimax/Five Mile Press

The New Monastic

“So fresh…” “Brilliant…inspirational…” “Honest, funny and interesting…” “An important piece of work…” “Immensely readable…” “Gripping and fascinating…” “a wonderful story!”

 

God Bless