Learning...

Saturday was unexpectedly full with things to do. Andy and Ben were putting up a fence with their dad, Jack was working and myself and Kim had a fair bit of tidying and shopping to do in preparation for our Finnish guests on Monday. We strolled our way downstairs, one by one, I guess feeling a little strange that our prayer week was coming to an end, and there was no way to prolong its end or put some good long time in prayer and discussion about our thoughts and feelings etc. we decided that we’d get together in a week or so and feedback once it had all sunk in a bit.

But there we were, once again. Hopefully not for the last time. And I opened my now pages of notes of the week and introduced the days theme to consider, reflect on and pray about. The practise of Learning would bring our week as a prayer community household to a fitting conclusion.

I read once again from the boiler room rule, explaining that 24/7 prayer communities should aim to ‘take the gospel to the world through being a learning community, a place of training and discipleship, where people are growing in their faith, their life-skills and their ability to lead…Communities that create the space and environment for relational discipleship; including study, sharing, accountability and encouragement – individually and corporately within a flexible and open, yet stable structure to the household.

The practise of learning, as with all the other practises is focussed on a healthy vulnerability and openness to be taught. To listen. To study. But also to put into practise what one has learnt.

James 1:22 says “do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

The missional monastic movements of old haven’t just seen scriptures as something to read or just talk about, but rather; something to do. James goes on to use the image of someone forgetting what they look like after looking at a mirror; and the scriptures are just like a mirror for us – they show us what we should look like, how we should live.

I went through four areas of learning outlined in PunkMonk, which are:

1. learn to understand others – to love others and see them as God sees them
2. learn to understand ourselves – why do I do the things I do? What am I bad/good at?
3. learn to apply and live out the things we learn – ‘until I love, I cannot truly understand what love means
4. learn to understand our world – can we see God in the high street as much as in our study groups?

I tried to summarise the list by putting forward that we need to learn to be taught by God. In the everyday things. Through each other. Through spending time in prayer and in His word. We need to learn that God speaks, all the time. He has spoken and is speaking. He is at work and fills everything everywhere, and we need to recognise him when we see him.

This can only be done through prayer. Through being in his presence. Again, we’ve come back to the most important thing of Loving God, in order that we can learn from him and love others in return. This is been the message of the whole week, and has, for me at least, thrown the importance and need for a right perspective on prayer sky high.

We soaked it all up as Kim began to lead us in our morning devotions. Being Easter eve, she went through the different gospel accounts of the resurrection, and introduced a challenging thought.

An angel asks Mary ‘why are you looking for the living among the dead?’ …sometimes we can look for God or the signs of life in the wrong places. The Kingdom of God is powerful and victorious, but shown through a servant; in the sight of apparent weakness God showed his power and displayed his strength of love for us. God’s kingdom reality shows a completely opposite view to what the world sees as powerful and secure with completely different definitions of strength, wisdom and love.

We then read the passage of scripture between Romans 5:12 and chp 6:14, looking at what is means to be alive to Christ, and with Christ. A life alive for God, not a life in death for sin/our own desires. We talked it through for some time, noticing that God’s grace is always and will ever be an overcomer of sin. It is possible to live a holy life – Christ has shown us the way – he is alive – will/how do we let him live that way through us? …and much more.

We spent some time in prayer. Thanking God for Jesus; for giving us life to the full, for the past week, for the future, for his grace and his love, and his life. For leading us. For forgiving us. For being faithful and trustworthy. For being our saviour and our God.