I was recently engaged in a fascinating conversation about the prospects for the church in the West. My conversation partner wondered why it was that  fewer people were forming a commitment to a local church. She reckoned that the slow decline could be dated as far back as the 1950’s. We agreed that the public facing reputation of the Church in relation to safeguarding and inclusivity  (to name only two issues) might be a cause of a lack of trust and even legitimacy. I found the most perturbing reflections  related to my friends experience of Church. ‘I have tried James’ she said ‘ but I find the experience unintelligible. It feels like sitting in a foreign country where I can’t understand the language or customs. And some of these Churches aren’t good with newbies’. This was not easy to hear as I think she held me partly responsible ! 

Contrast this with the start of a new academic year with Sarum College Centre for Formation in Ministry Summer School.https://www.sarum.ac.uk/summer-school-2024/ . It was both invigorating and inspiring. These are a group of gifted and experienced women and men drawn to serve God through the ministry of the Church of England.

In the week we dug deeply into the nature of story. We explored the politics of story and the ways in which we might share the Christian story particularly of justice, truth, hope and wholeness. The students listened to each other, prayed together, and reflected on the nature of our responsibility to show the story of love given to us in Christ. They are an impressive group ! Their call is strong and their commitment humbling. Many have made significant sacrifices. I hold this week and our journey into wisdom alongside that conversation earlier in the summer.

What are we to make of the shifts of fortune for Christianity in this land and beyond?

It is against this background that I spent a happy Saturday digging into George Guivers latest book. Slightly unsure about the title the 10 chapters did not  disappoint. They are rich shaped as they are by wisdom, learning and an informed pragmatism. Guiver wants his reader to go deeper and shows us how to.

Let us take a brief overview of this book. Chapter 1 shows the reader that both monasteries and parishes inhabit the same world. Christians are called to share something life-giving with others rooted in faith in Christ. We are taken to Leicester and his  early formation which lived out the importance of the church in and through its life in a particular community. A life changing, horizon stretching, experience at the Franciscan friary at Alnmouth proved to be turning point. Through these formative experiences we see and feel  the importance of community. Service, presence, silence and worship shape the beating heart of the sustaining of community and witness.

There is an illuminating  account of a day in the life of a monk at Mirfield in Chapter 2. Guiver combines clear and precise description about the shape of the day and some of the challenges of living together in community. It also introduces the reader to the underlying spiritual significance of the vows that nuns  and monks make.  

Chapter 3, describe the significant moment in the life of the writer – a penny dropping moment – as he describes it. A moment of encounter that takes the writer into a different place beneath the surface to what he describes as an in exhaustible depth (p22). You cannot plan for such a time.

Perhaps each of us have had such experiences which are hard to put into any immediate or accessible  language. They are moments when we come to know and connect with our inner life. Perhaps they are times when our sense of the spiritual is heightened or we come into a conviction which we know we need to live by.

This can find expression through a spiritual adventure. For Guiver it was to interiorise a set of skills by discipline, practice and training. The quality of his lifetime adventure of learning through practice, discipline attention and the nurture of our spiritual lives by following Christ is carefully explained.  These pages capture the essence of being a Christian today with a clarity and passion that is born out of practice and discipline. Slowly the book reveals the meaning of its title.                                                                                         George Guiver  CR

Chapter 4 discusses the complexity of what community might look like. In a functional world that moves quickly and where the individual is monarch this is deeply radical. It takes its wisdom from the Rule of Benedict.  Respect, humility, mutuality, tone  and attention all shape the characteristics of community and communion.

We need to take the Church seriously but not too seriously. We need to play our part in the nurture of holiness and in forbearance of all of our shortcomings and idiosyncrasies. Above all this is founded and rooted within prayer which brings us into communion with the living and loving God. This is not easy. It takes time and it is not surprising at those around us view the shape of who we are and what we do with some measure of curiosity.

It is  here where we see the core thesis that the contemporary church has much to learn from monastic communities. There are things that  we have  lost and should recover. I sense a deep commitment to a liberal catholic ecology,  rooted in prayer and the Eucharist. It is also radically open to the glorious truth of God  who is often to be found in unexpected people and places.  

This requires a spirit of trust, the nurture of imagination and readiness to participate and realisation that we are constantly learning what believing means for us and our fragile world. This is slow work that requires time and discipline.

Chapter 5 explores what it means to follow Jesus. Guiver carries his scholarship with a skilful ability to draw upon it in a way which illuminates and deepens the intellectual and spiritual world of his reader. Here he show his reader how complex language is. He invites us into a different relationship to and appreciation of tradition .

He offers his reader a metaphor of the community as an orchestra that develops its repertoire and enables flourishing and freedom and human liberation. This chapter draws itself to close by grounding some of what he has explored in monastic theology. We are invited to Love learning and to deepen our desire for God which has an infinite ability to spill over into our communities. He is clear however that apprehension of truth and belief can only develop as we actually practice the practices of Christianity.

Chapter 6 looks at the Christian practices including baptism, Eucharist, communion and daily prayer. By this stage in the book we note a gentle conversation taking place between the monastery and the church. This is all set within the context of a world that  knows its need of God and can feel its spiritual pulse.

The Chapel of the Community of the Resurrection Mirfield. https://mirfield.org.uk/

Chapter 7 picks up more emphasis on practice,  especially in serving others and the  building of community. This can emerge as we nurture mutual obedience and the grace and gift of patience. Guiver explores how we might use church buildings to communicate the divine through music, art and the imagination.

He calls us to be a practising community as we trust in the importance of perseverance.

Chapter 8 ground sum of this theology for the renewal of the Church in a number of practical examples of the shape of a number of communities. Not surprisingly worship stands at the heart of this and there is a powerful and persuasive argument for what he calls the rock of liturgy (page 110ff). The final two chapters acknowledge some of the perplexities of the journey of faith with a realism and a carefulness which are  both moving and encouraging. He asks us to be a model, so that we can hold before others, the presence of God.

The book ends with a powerful testimony of the life in the Catholic tradition from the American Franciscan Richard Rohr ( from his book Falling Upwards)  and how dependence offers us a  model to shape an honest faithfulness.f .

If ever there was a testimony to the wisdom that comes from age and experience, this book is certainly a fine example of such generativity in mature years.

From my perspective, it’s also a powerful and challenging agenda for a different kind of theological formation. There is an integration, learning and pragmatism that invites the reader for into deeper reflection and action. It deserves to be widely read and even more put  deeply put into practice.

One small point, but not insignificant. A reading list and a bibliography would have been helpful for his readership. It might also help those of us to use this work  both theological education and in showing the Church how important our religious communities are.

Renewal may just start with a moderation of our anxiety and a deeper trust in what God might be calling us into at this present moment.

For more information from the publishers see https://www.sacristy.co.uk/books/theology/christians-monks