Next model for us to look at is the 24-7 Boiler Room Rule. They have a diagram and everything!

The Boiler Room Rule

(i) The two Purposes

A 24-7 Boiler Room exists to love God in prayer and to love its neighbours in practice. These purposes are contextualised in community and expressed in a defined location.

(ii) The Three Principles
At the heart of every Boiler Room is a living community committed to being:
1. Authentic: True to Christ.
2. Relational: Kind to People.
3. Missional: Taking the Gospel to the World.

(iii) The Six Practices
Every Boiler Room Community applies these three principles practically through six core activities:

A Boiler Room is true to Christ by being:
• A prayerful community practicing a daily rhythm of which includes all kinds of prayers on all occasions.
• A creative community where artistic expressions of prayer and worship may take the form of art, sculpture, new music, poetry, dance, fun and a celebratory lifestyle.

A Boiler Room is kind to people by being:
• A just and merciful community where the practical needs of the local poor are met and where liberation is championed.
• A hospitable community where pilgrims are welcomed, meals are shared and where friendships can flourish across boundaries of race and culture.

A Boiler Room is committed to taking the gospel to the world by being:
• A missional community existing for incarnation and proclamation of the gospel to all people. To act as well as to pray.
• A learning community of training and discipleship, where people are growing in their faith, their life-skills and their ability to lead.

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

There are so many models and patterns and rhythms that people have adopted that can be adapted and learned from. I'll try and post some over the next while.

Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

During 1997-1998 I was a part of a community house on Oakridge Housing Estate in Basingstoke. There were 3 of us living in community, and we had moved to the area as it was a place of great social and spiritual need with virtually total unemployment, great drug and other substance abuse issues, many of the kids on the 'at risk' register and a high proportion of young single mothers.

Each member of the community worked part time jobs in the local area and we lived in a rhythm of prayer, service, hospitality and sabbath. We ministered alongside the local church in the area mainly spending our time working with children and young parents, and a large number of people with learning difficulties who were housed in a community house on the estate.

Our home was open to everyone, we fed kids whose parents threw them out in the morning and didnt let them come home until after dark, we helped young mums to get access to benefits and services that would help them to grow and develop, and we spent a lot of long hours prayer walking the estate.

It was hard work. Living life sharing all you have (or trying to) was not easy and we learnt a lot about each other and ourselves, sometimes in hard ways. But, the moments of Gods faithfulness - such as the many many occasions on which we'd emptied our cupboards and had no money left to buy anymore food to give to the kids, only to open the door the next morning and find boxes of food in abundance on our doorstep - shone brightly and increased our faith to believe for community restoration, even in the hardest moments.

Community Living - hard, but worth it.

One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one's own self!—can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.

Is there anyone here who, planning to build a new house, doesn't first sit down and figure the cost so you'll know if you can complete it? If you only get the foundation laid and then run out of money, you're going to look pretty foolish. Everyone passing by will poke fun at you: 'He started something he couldn't finish.'

Or can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first deciding whether it is possible with his ten thousand troops to face the twenty thousand troops of the other? And if he decides he can't, won't he send an emissary and work out a truce?

Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can't be my disciple.

So let's do it—full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out. Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

I want to zoom in on a few words from the massive Bonhoeffer quote posted previously.

Rich Wyld was the first person to tell me this in September 2009 and people have been reminding me of it regularly since then.

He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

The full section can be read here.

Thanks to Rich, Stephen, Freeman, Togwell, and everyone who keeps reminding me about this.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of finding rhythms, and of the important balance between rhythm and spontaneity. Today I thought I’d bring you some of the inspiring thoughts of urban theologian Paul Grant:

...Rhythm and Ritual. The two words have essentially the same idea behind them. Both describe an event, or pattern of events, which happen at regular intervals in order to facilitate something bigger to happen. Rhythm is usually heard in a musical context and ritual in a religious context, but it seems to me the word ritual has very negative connotations, and that actually what we are trying to achieve as Christians is not Ritual, but Rhythm.

Rhythm is organic, it is natural. Without rhythm, the orchestra will not play beautiful music. Without rhythm, the dancer cannot stay in time. Without rhythm, the farmer doesn't know when to sow and when to harvest. Rhythm is breathing and heartbeats. It is sunrise and sunset. Rhythm is seasons and rainfall. Rhythm is beauty and growth. When we tune into God, when we dance to his rhythm, we grow. When we breathe in and breathe out in holy rhythm, we discover God...

...This is what it is like for us and God. God has set the beat. We may all respond to the rhythm in different ways. Some of us may decide that our beat might be to pray three times daily. Some of us might want to spend half an hour singing to God every day. We need to find out for ourselves how we can engage with God, when we do that, we contribute to the great holy rhythm and we grow with God.

Ritual is what happens when we forget why we are doing something; when the thing that we are doing becomes the reason for doing it. Do you come to church on a Sunday? Why? Do you come to YF on a Sunday night? Why? Do you read your bible, or pray or sing? Why? When we lose our motivation, when we do something because that's what we've always done, or because we think we should, or because someone else tells us we should, our actions become empty ritual. God doesn't want ritual. God created us to dance.

Thanks, Paul.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

A list agreed on by some of the North American communities describing the key features of North American 'New Monasticism'.

You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer had watched the silent compliance of his church in Nazi Germany. He coined the term 'New Monasticism'.

'...the restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ. I think it is time to gather people together to do this...'

Extract of a letter written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his brother Karl-Friedrick on the 14th of January, 1935.
(Source: John Skinner, Northumbria Community).

Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

Final blog from Brian Heasley on what can go wrong in Christian Communities of all kinds, and what makes it better.

Atrophic communities




I was listening to a talk by a great friend of mine called Graham, who when he was young had a really bad motorbike accident, this led to his arm being in plaster for many months. The doctors became very concerned that his arm would suffer from atrophy, actually I think it did.

Graham likened communities that didn't connect with the worlds they where placed in to a limb suffering from atrophy!

Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. In the case of his arm it was what is known as disuse atrophy!

Interestingly if something isn't used it partially or completely wastes away. I wonder if communities can become atrophic if they don't flex their community engagement muscles? Or in old school terms communities that aren't evangelistic will waste away partially or completely.

Resting inside the plaster caste of the churches we may have created are the rotting disused limbs of a once vibrant, fit and healthy body.

Interestingly atrophy can be turned around by exercise.

Just more thoughts, on a roll here......

You can check out Grahams talk HERE