Basileia is an expression of the one, holy, catholic (universal), apostolic Church.
Basileia is an expression of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that has been given a unique kingdomcultural charism, lifestyle and mission.
Our logo portrays Basileia as a city with four horizontal gateways that aim us to the north, south, east and west in the quest to cultivate the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Ours is a vision of comprehensive redemption, which includes every sphere of thought and life, all domains of society and culture, and even restoration for the natural order.
Basileia is also a “gate of heaven,” a vertical gateway that connects heaven and earth to advance the redemption of mankind and his restoration to friendship with God.
Because the Church, the city of God, is central to this great cosmic drama, Basileia is not merely a religious institution in someone else's society, but a kingdomcultural alternative, that is, a holy city demonstrating and presenting this comprehensive salvation as an alternative to the Fallen World System.
As the Church, Basileia is uniquely constituted to believe this vision of God and embody His purposes for the world as a kingdomcultural movement actively doing the real work of building the holy city of God.
We are a global community of Basileia Communities and Vocational Societies. Communities are composed of Fellowships united around an Abbey. Vocational Societies are composed of Chapters membered to a Fellowship.
We are a convergence movement. We seek to live in the radical center defined by the three main theological traditions of the historical Church: the liturgical and sacramental, the Evangelical and Reformed, and the Orthodox and charismatic.
We affirm that the Church, as the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), is a court of truth, not a source of truth. Therefore, Basileia recognizes that the creeds and councils of the Church serve as secondary, derivative and subordinate authorities.
Basileia is a member of Communio Christiana, a global communion of thousands of churches in the continents of Africa (in the countries of Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), Asia (in the country of India) Europe (in the countries of Ireland, Spain and Wales), North America (among First Nations and in the countries of Canada and the USA) and South America (in the countries of Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela).
The more I immerse myself in the universal language of myth and legend the more alive Scripture becomes, the more mystically transformative the sacraments and the Liturgy become, and the more clear the speaking of the Holy Spirit becomes.
Giving ourselves to the epic quest of embodying God in our leprous bodies is how we exhaust evil.
The Father’s language is way more wild, controversial, deeply mystical, and outright outrageous than mortal minds can handle. Thus, to hear and learn from the Father we must first eat what Tolkien calls lembas, the waybread of Elves.
Both the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan, like white and black pieces on a chessboard, are at war over whose world system shall rule creation.
Romantic fiction and science fiction give us the key that puts into proper perspective rulings like those of late by the U.S. Supreme Court redefining marriage. The key? Heroism.
The Roman Empire didn’t have a problem with Christian believers, but with Christian worshipers.
It doesn't matter if you're sailing a boat, smacking a tennis ball, kicking a football, climbing 8,000 meter peaks, playing chess, or drinking Christ’s blood from a chalice served by a priest in the Eucharistic worship of the Church. We’re all playing the same game for the same prize.
Providentially, only two days before watching the movie, Lucy, for the first time in my life I encountered the phrase, “the drug of immortality,” but not from a Hollywood scriptwriter.
Spiritualistic and materialistic notions of the world are scandalous. They both suffer from an underdeveloped sense of the Resurrection as an accomplished fact. The image of God in us isn’t just a “spiritual” reality, but also one for the physics books.
Having faith in God doesn’t magically make the world a better place. Having God’s faith in humanity does.
"Circle me, Lord." The First Adam didn’t pray this way nor invite his wife to join him in such a prayer. However, the Second Adam does pray this way and invites his bride, the Church, to join Him in praying this way too.
Forbidden fruit never satisfies. The more we eat, the hungrier we get. We’re at a turning point. Something big’s happening. We’re losing a taste for formulas. The prodigal son is coming to his senses.
Arising out of a common desire and hunger to experience the fullness of Christian worship and spirituality, the Convergence Movement seeks to blend or merge the essential elements in the Christian faith represented historically in three major streams of thought and practice: the Charismatic, Evangelical/Reformed and Liturgical/Sacramental.
As a Soul Friend, Tim is forming a colony of heaven on earth by giving people a place to belong in order to believe instead of requiring them to believe before they can belong.
In all great stories, there is a point where the hero and his or her friends make a costly choice. Contrary to the instinct for self-preservation, they take dangerous paths into the heart of darkness to destroy evil and save the world.
The mission to restore all things is the spirit and pattern of liturgical Eucharistic worship. Replacing the Fallen World System with the Kingdom of God is the joy of worship.
Subcultural and countercultural forms of denominationalism effectively say yes to Hades and to hell with the Church. Kingdomculture dares to say yes to the Church and to hell with hell.
When we’re about the ultimate business of running our own city, we no longer “go to church” or “go to work” or “go to the store” or “go to school” as exiles, but go from Church into our own city to embody the Kingdom of God in our various specialized vocational callings seven days a week.
Our destiny, your destiny, my destiny is to shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. Dare to imagine that. Dare to imagine becoming by Grace what God is by nature. As St. Athanasius says, Christ became “incarnate” so we might be “ingodded.”
The covenantal nature of mankind as created in God’s image with both an individual and collective nature is foundational to understanding the nature of male-female equality and the nature of male headship, respectively.
The Covenantal view of how men and women exercise individual and collective governance is an area of profound confusion today.
In addition to the false dichotomy between “local church” and “mission church” we also face a great challenge in the false dichotomy between individual freedom and collective order in membership.
Our kingdomcultural lifestyle makes us participants in the Epic Story of Paradise lost and regained, a story that unfolds in rhythm with the seasons of the Church Year.
In the kingdom of God, fire is a good thing. "Let the wind of Your Spirit blow and reverse the works of darkness: and Your fire will cover the earth." (Celtic Daily Prayer, p. 159.)
The Fallen World System is the problem for which kingdomculture embodied in the Capital C Church is the solution. Putting the phrase “Capital C” in front of the word Church is necessary in order to be clear that there’s more to the Church than just distinctive expressions of the Church like the “local church,” the “mission church,” the “house church,” the “mega church,” or the “established church.”
Christus Victor is the ancient, central, and unifying theme of the faith of God’s people since the beginning (Gen. 3:15). The prophets called it “the counsel of the Lord” (Jer. 23:18; cf. Amos 3:7). Paul referred to it when he spoke of the “good confession” that Jesus made before Pontius Pilate (1 Tim. 6:13). And Jesus Himself called it “the mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mk. 4:11).
The Constitution of Basileia expresses our charism, that is, the divine graces, distinctive orientation, spiritual qualifications, cultural ethos and special characteristics of the mission and values granted to us in Jesus Christ for the life of the world.
For mortals, fantasy isn’t real but pretend. But fantasy in the hands of faithful immortals is the power of sanctified imagination to fuse thought and action and build worlds in the language of poetry, epic story, ceremony, liturgy, and ritual.