A Week in the Life 2020

What does a week in the life of Community actually look like?

There is not a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as it depends on what your missional placement and course of study looks like. Broadly speaking, however, we divide our week in the following way:

One day – Sabbath

Up to four days – Missional Placement

Minimum of one day – Study / Training

Equivalent of one day – Community Commitments

Sabbath

Sabbath is one of our nine core spiritual practices – it is more than a day off! We ask all community members to commit to a 24-hour Sabbath each week. Sabbath could start on Thursday evening, Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning, whatever works for you. We encourage community members to use their Sabbath to eat well, rest well and play well!

Missional Placement

Placement hours are our biggest variable. Each community member will complete between 8-32 hours on placement each week. These hours will be scattered over several days, often including evenings and Sundays. We will work flexibly with you to ensure you can easily complete the required hours of your placement.

Study / Training

Whether you are following our ‘in-house’ New Monastic program, New Wine DY curriculum or studying with iCYM or St Mellitus, Tuesday is study day. For those following a course of academic study there will be other teaching days and time available for private study. We will work these around your required placement hours.

Community Commitments

To create a fertile environment for deep-spirited friendships to emerge within the community house, we have a few shared commitments. These commitments will take place at different times to fit around placements and study.

Weekly

Each week we will gather as a household for an act of community worship, to share a community meal and to hold a community forum. These are likely to be on different days. We ask community members to commit to a two-hour time of solitude each week. We will resource you to use this time creatively.

Monthly

Each month residents will gather in smaller ‘listening groups’ and have the option to meet with an external Spiritual Director. We also run a monthly community workshop where we introduce and explore a Rule of Life with our dispersed members.

Termly

Each term there will be a community retreat day and a 3-way supervision conversation between you, your placement line manager and a member of the community staff team. This joins up the dots and ensures that you are resourced to live a sustainable and fruitful rhythm of life.

Prayer

Our rhythm of prayer forms the bass line or drum beat around which all other activity and commitments provide melody. The resident community gathers to pray three times each weekday at 8:30am, 12:30pm & 9:30pm. We invite you to join in and take a lead in ways that fit with the rhythm of your week. We also have a day of non-stop prayer each month.

Sleep & the 'nitty-gritty'

There are 168 hours in a week. If you take away 50 hours for sleep and all the activity listed above, that leaves approximately 48 hours, for shopping, cooking, eating, watching Netflix, washing, cleaning and housework, exercise, grabbing a coffee, Facetiming family… the nitty-gritty of life.

Food & Finance

You will receive a weekly allowance of £40 to cover your food, basics and those little luxuries. We ask residents to commit to one community meal each week. We hope you will find creative ways of cooking and sharing food together at other times of the week.