Spirituality

I have been trying to write this for a while but I keep finding there is something else jumping into my head to distract me! Over the last few months I have been thinking a lot about how we can create spiritual moments in the midst of the very secular environment which is Sunday@thepub – I will need to blog about that in itself I think – but for now to bring you up to speed it’s a kind of fresh expression in the making. We meet in one of the local pubs each Sunday night and we have used nooma http://nooma.com/ to help us in the past and we have just created another event at the pub once a month which is a chance to watch nooma and discuss faith issues over a curry.

Anyway the whole spirituality thing was highlighted again while I was away at the Breakout conference http://www.breakoutpioneer.org.uk/ we had the opportunity to get involved in discussions around particular topics. One of the sessions I attended was about New Monastic’s http://www.newmonasticism.com/ I found it very helpful and challenging, for myself I know I’ve found it increasingly hard to find a spirituality that works for me and as such I often find myself all over the place, but New Monasticism seemed to strike a chord although I’m still trying to work out what that means and how it might work.

This interest was brought to the fore again after spending a few days on holiday in Krakow, Poland. We visited lots of Catholic churches while we were there and I have to say it was inspiring. The buildings were beautiful, but what really struck me was a palpable sense of God’s presence.  Almost all the churches had people in them that were deep in prayer and reflection, it was incredibly moving.

So back to Sunday@thepub... How then do you create spiritual moments in the midst of this secular environment ... the guy that spoke about New Monasticism talked about ‘finding stillness’ – not in the silent sense but in your inner self. I think this is very helpful... but only if you can find that sense of stillness... We at Sunday@thepub are still some way off that I think, but it’s worth mulling over a little more. 

The other thing that has struck me recently which I think I need to reflect on more is seeing everything around us as a spiritual encounter or as Rob Bell might call it ‘everything is spiritual’. I think these two things could help us in this reflection, but I would love to hear if anyone else has experience in this area.