Someone asked me what faith was. And this was my reply to his question. Faith is not what we believe. Thats belief. Rather faith is the willingness to take a risk to act on what we say we believe. Thats faith. So if communities become increasingly risk averse there is no way they can be communities of [...]

 Dave Andrews In a much-cited article entitled “Resist not evil:” Conservatism in The Sermon on the Mount, published in The Busy Signal, J.A. Meyerson states that ’The main thrust of the Nazarene’s doctrine is: if you the poor are abused, exploited, stolen from, made to suffer or otherwise racked with injustice, grin and bear it. [...]

 Not all of us will be able to pack up our bags and join a team in New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangkok, Manila, or Phnom Penh. In which case my next story – of ‘Peter and Adrienne and the Cabramatta Gardens’ – is the story just for you. Peter, and his wife Adrienne, wanted to go [...]

For the last five years I have been an elder for Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor. Servants is a network of spiritual communities committed to living and working holistically with the poor in Asia’s urban slums. Servants have been going for twenty years, and they have developed communities in India, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines. [...]

If we are going to embody the kingdom of heaven on earth there are a few steps that, sooner or later, we all need to take. The first step we all need to take is a step of integrity. This is a personal step. When we decide that we can live ‘divided no more’ but [...]

Jesus said that without the ‘power of the Spirit’, we should not even try to start working for change, lest we end up destroying the world that we are trying to create. (Luke 24:49) However, with that strong but gentle power, Jesus said, nothing on earth can stop us from embodying the kingdom of heaven [...]

The final phrase in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples is not an upbeat paean of praise crying aloud – ‘for yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.’ It is not in the original text at all. The final phrase is actually a humble down-beat petition for help – ‘lead us not into [...]

A classic example of the impact of the transformative movement Francis and Clare started (see previous post), is the life of Elisabeth von Thuringia, known as the ‘Elisabeth of Many Castles’. Elisabeth was born in 1207, probably at Pressburg, in Thuringia. She was the daughter of King Andrew II and Queen Gertrude of Hungary. King Andrew [...]

In my view the only hope for a world entering A New Dark Age is the emergence of new movements of Brother Suns and Sister Moons. The story of ‘Brother Sun and Sister Moon’, began originally in the twelfth century Dark Age in Italy. Francis was born to a French mother and Italian father in [...]

Jesus’ prayer suggest that anyone who is passionate about doing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven will be passionate about feeding the hungry – and forgiving debts  – and thereby freeing all the debt-slaves from their bondage. Jesus doesn’t teach his disciples to pray: ‘give me this day my daily bread.’ Jesus [...]

The core request Jesus makes to God in his prayer is ‘hallowed be your name.’ The word, ‘hallow’, means ‘to make holy’. The request for God’s name to ‘be hallowed’ or ‘to be made holy’, implies that right now God’s name is ‘not holy’, and we – as the people of God – are invited [...]

When Jesus shared with his disciples the passion he had to be change he wanted to see in the world, he said to them, ‘this is how you ought to pray’: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us [...]