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.
Journey to the Mountain
We cultivate Advent spirituality in our discipline of journeying with Christ to the Mountain as we practice Eucharistic worship, the Daily Office and contemplative prayer. We pray eucharistically, daily and contemplatively in order to cultivate a watchful and awakened anticipation of the extraordinary inbreaking of God as foretold in the Epic Story. We do not journey because we first came up with the idea, but because God took the initiative to call us. In our various practices of prayer we learn the art of looking for, seeing and then responding to the initiative of God. Responding to God’s initiative as revealed in the Epic Story is foundational to why and how we assemble.
Assemble as the Church
We engage in Christmas and Epiphany spirituality in our discipline of assembling as the Church as we practice belonging in order to believe, building colonies of heaven on earth and creating thin places. What Advent anticipates, Christmas fulfills and Epiphany manifests. Just as in the Incarnation, God in Christ came and belonged to the human race, so with the help of a Soul Friend we learn to belong, not to something people have autonomously assembled, but that Christ is assembling with and through people, namely, His Church. This assembly to which we are called to belong is a City on a hill, a colony of heaven on earth that we each have a part in building. Therefore we each endeavor to discover and to do our part as Celtic Community-Builders in building out this colony. Finally, as the ecclesia of God – the leading citizens of this City – we sit in council together in the thin places of the world where heaven and earth connect to co-author with the Holy Spirit new content in the Epic Story of this City. As we write new chapters, we first listen to the Word’s revelation of the context of the story.
Listen to the Word
We embrace the spirituality of Lent in our discipline of listening to the Word as we practice following the Lectionary, interpreting the Word according to the Apostolic Rule of Faith and observing our Constitution. Lent, like Advent, anticipates something, namely a victory over evil – a victory won in a chivalric way that the rulers of this age did not grasp because they did not listen to the Word, but closed their ears. Therefore, our three main practices of listening are all vital to participating in the Epic Story because we must first listen and hear the framework of the story. It was the Lord’s idea 3,500 years ago, not something that we came up with today, to train His people to embody His Word as Storytellers in the framework of the seasonal rhythm of an annual calendar. Thus the People of God have never been without a story-formed context that gives them a feel for how to interpret and apply God’s Word as Pattern-Keepers. This story-formed feel of the meaning of things is foundational to what we call today the Apostolic Rule of Faith, the pattern of interpretation of God’s Word that the People of God down through the centuries have sometimes faithfully kept, but at other times have utterly failed to observe. In our Catechism we therefore learn to listen to the Word through the instructive example of the epic successes and failures of God’s people. These successes and failures are themselves a critical aspect of the Epic Story. We then boldly and humbly follow Jesus’ example in being Overcomers by saying in our Constitution what we have heard our Father say. The degree to which our Constitution is self-evidently authoritative reflects the degree to which by listening we have actually heard the pattern of the Epic Story. Only when the Epic Story has soaked into our bones are we then ready to govern from the Table.
Govern from the Table
We enter into the spirituality of Pascha and Pentecost in our discipline of governing from the Table as we practice open communion, consensus decision-making and funding the Kingdom through tithing and giving. For 3,500 years God’s people have retold the Epic Story around a table at Passover, which Jesus transformed into the Last Supper at the center of all Eucharist celebration. Our role as Sentinels is not to keep people from this Table according to our small ideas of who should or shouldn’t be there, but to guard against the traditions of men stopping people from coming that Christ welcomes. The first great test of the Church in this matter happened after Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Gentiles. Did Gentiles have to become Jews to be Christians? The consensus decision of the Friends of God in the Council of the Lord in Acts 15 wisely prescribed how both Jews and Gentiles were to get along as Christians and sit together at the same Table. This is the story our Catechism equips us to participate in because governing decisions are all in one way or another the wrestling of gatekeepers with how to guard and keep the City in God’s way and not according to their own autonomous ways. But when we are faithful to God’s way, then we truly become Stewards who form covenantal alliances with others that reverse the curse, enabling us to create wealth of which our tithes and offerings are but an overflow. The Epic Story of the restoration of all things does not unfold without Sentinels, Friends of God and Stewards. We must learn these roles so that the Kingdom is then able to advance through our service to the Church and the world.
Serve the Church and the World
Kingdomtime spirituality is expressed in our discipline of serving the Church and the world as we practice offering hospitality, advancing the Kingdom through our vocational callings and traveling to the edges of Christendom. Our Catechism equips us to serve, first as Hosts who see all people with a unique destiny to fulfill in the Epic Story. Therefore, we do not sit around waiting for people to come, but, following Jesus, we go out, find them and invite them in. Our role as Ambassadors is shaped by the knowledge that all people already have about themselves – that we are all, each in our own unique way, gifted with a special kind of genius that seeks to be liberated. Therefore, as Basileians we release people to play their part in the Epic Story. This leads us as Voluntary Exiles to travel to the edges, to a place where to travel further means the writing of new chapters in the Epic Story.
The instructional and formative dimensions of our Catechism are also represented in our logo.
Also See: Epic Story: Part 1
