Eltham War Memorial Tower & Park at Kangaroo Ground in Melbourne

What does it mean to look out?
How does/can it change your perspective to feel above things? to understand their size in the order of things?
Do you feel a sense of space and freedom when in the wilderness?

Try physically placing yourself where you need to be to get what you want in terms of headspace.

Western culture is at a turning point. Christendom forms of church (churches organised according to the machinery and mindset of empire) are dying, but spirituality increases.  What can Celtic models of spirituality offer?

Roots, rhythms and relationships
deep enough to provide common ground.

Jesus came to confirm what is true and purify what isn’t – Jesus does that, not you.
Are you spiritual or are you religious?
Church preaches kingdom but doesn’t model.  Homes model but don’t preach.  Need: little villages. CHurch that knows Sunday is not enough.

hub

Tribal leaders gave lands by the strategic highways of sea and river to church planters who established communities of daily prayer, education, hospitality and land care.  Peoples monastery churches served as daily prayer base, school, library, scriptorium/arts centre, drop-in, health centre.  They had farms with livestock and crops, workshops such as wood, spinning and milling. They were open to the world.  They offered soul friends, training and even entertainment.  Children, housewive, farm workers and visitors would wander in and out.  Visitors bought news from overseas.  They were villages of God.  Each had its wn flavour in worship and values (Rule) yet each was connected with the univvrsal church through common prctices, prayers, and priests ordained in the apostolic sucession.

today’s changing trends

Although our society is vastly different, changing trends again require churches that are more than single-building Sunday-only congregations.

• A twenty four hour society calls for seven day a week churches
• A cafe society calls for churches that are eating places
• A travelling society calls for churchesthat provide accommodation and reconnect with the hostel movement
• A stressed society calls for churches that provide spaces for retreat and meditation
• A multi-choice society calls for churches that have a choice of styles and facilities
• A fragmented socitey calls for holistic models and whole life discipling
• An eco-threatened society calls for more locally sustainable communities.

“Can’t have deep ecology without deep spirituality” – John Phillip Newel.

The glory of God is seen
through the human life fully lived.

Need self-sustaining spiritual disciplines.
“Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you Lord” – Augustine