New Year’s Moot Update

Happy New Year from all of us at Moot!

Wishing you all a bright January 1st morning, a restful end to holidays, and a peaceful start to the year ahead.

As we look to the year ahead and consider our road ahead and the changes we’re looking for, we wanted to update you on our direction as a community together. We’ve spent the last couple of years catching our breath from a years-long journey, particularly making a home at St Mary Aldermary, watching the Host Cafe come alive, and welcome Paul Kennedy our new priest.

This past November the community took a weekend to go away and take stock of who we are, what we are, and where we want to go together. I’d like to share a report from that weekend from Paul our priest (below).

Once again wishing you God’s peace, hope, and energy as we enter 2018 together – from all of us at Moot.

“On the weekend of the 3-5 November 20 people from the Moot Community travelled to the Youth Hostel at Littlehampton for fellowship, relaxation and an exploration of Moot’s calling. Littlehampton was a wonderful site: with the long beach; the tidal Arun river; and the huge open skies which we Londoners really appreciated.

Together we ate, we prayed, we talked, we drank, we walked, we played board games, and we explored God’s calling. We decide to redraw a simple Rhythm of Life to which Moot members can choose to commit; we reaffirmed our practices of contemplative and inherited prayer; we reflected upon how a distinctive community maintains an open welcome; we reaffirmed our New Monastic roots but accepted that we may be evolving in a less structured and more contemplative way; we planned a walk in the Chilterns; and we started plans for our next annual weekend away. The company was wonderful, the food was great, the Youth Hostel was cosy, the weekend felt blessed and I’m already looking forward to next year’s time away.

A draft of the Rhythm of Life should be ready for Lent, following a series of Community Forums, with a service at the end of September at which we hope Archdeacon Rosemary will preside.”