grace last night was excellent. taking the theme of discipline we explored four areas –

• discipline of time (organising the rhythm of life)
• discipline of idleness (ensuring we create time for being lazy, rest, play)
• discipline of practice (lots of areas of life require practice – e.g. sport – in what ways can we develop practice to mature our faith)
• discipline of community (what do we do together as grace to support faith)

i was facilitating the discussion on community. i think we are likely to explore a lot more here. the questions are things like

1. what does grace do that helps you in your journey with christ?
2. what’s missing from what grace does?
3. grace has identified an ethos – what is the framework that supports us in living it?
4. what would a grace rule/rhythm of life look like

lots of other groups are exploring these kinds of issues so we’ll see where we get to with it. i’ll blog more about this in due course. i’ve been very interested in the reflections on developing a missional order that alan roxburgh and chris erdman have posted. i can’t see us having monastery, abbot and ethos fully fledged out – but there’s a lot of good stuff here.

i have posted some pics on flickr. i have also created a gracelondon flickr group where we can share our grace pics.

once we had expored these four areas and collected a different coloured clothes peg at each we collected a piece of washing line and put them on and joined them together in a circle with the following piece of liturgy written by steve…

We hang our lives upon your mercy
measured out in miles
your boundaries and pathways,
coordinates and charts
that guide our steps
along roads you travelled before us

We will make time for you and your word
We will practice your ways until they are part of us
We will rest and play in you
We will be your people

[hold the end of the line of the person next to you]

We are not complete without one another
We cannot run the race alone

We will support one another
encourage one another
wait for the weak
pick up the fallen
through your strength and love

When we are together we will remember what it is like to travel alone
When we are alone we will remember what it is like to travel together
Wherever we are we will remember God who always goes with us

Go with us now, Lord, this night and always
Amen