Seven Sacred Spaces

Our Messy Godfather, George Lings, was in cracking conversation with Tim Lea and Lizzie Lowrie from Fresh Expressions on Facebook about his new book Seven Sacred Spaces: Portals to deeper community life in Christ (BRF, 2020). Well worth a listen, but prepare to be challenged!
Watch the video here. For more information about Seven Sacred Spaces: Portals to deeper community life in Christ and to order, click here.
Extensive personal experience, research and reflection have convinced George that the cell, chapel, chapter, cloister, garden, refectory and scriptorium all have a distinctive and important contribution to make in the creation of vibrant Christian discipleship and community. Challenged to say why cell (time along with God) could be even more important than chapel (corporate worship), he replied:
‘Let me put it this way: our very long over-investment in chapel simply has not worked. The enormous resources that are put into clergy – training them and paying them, our expensive buildings, the creativity lavished on worship, have frankly not delivered quality Christian community or convincing disciples of Christ. Rather in the west, what we’ve lived through is a century of declining attendance. We’ve managed to acquire for ourselves a pretty distinguished tarnished image and until we are changed inside by encounter with God, no investment in public worship is actually going to deliver the goods.’
There’s a tiny section in the book itself of my reflections bringing together the seven sacred spaces and Messy Church. The conversation made me think of even more interesting possibilities – see what you think!