Northumbria Community

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Home A story of Community

A story of Community

About the Community - Who We Are
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“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” Deut 4:9      
            
Beginnings can be traced to relationships formed in the late 70’s and early 80’s initially with John and Linda Skinner and Andy Raine in North Northumberland. Here God planted the seeds of vision and vocation in their hearts that bore fruit in the ideas, images, metaphors and concepts that were foundational to the ethos and spirituality of what was to become the Northumbria Community. These were often birthed and grown in the context of an Annual Easter workshop where relationship and teaching were explored, always culminating in worship and witness on Holy Island on Easter Sunday.

johnandroyIn the mid 80’s the Nether Springs Trust was formed to release John into a ministry of spiritual direction in the context of a contemplative calling. In 1989 an apostolic group called Northumbria Ministries, committed to mission in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, led by Roy Searle, met with the group that represented Nether Springs and explored a coming together as one. This led in June 1991 to The Nether Springs Trust, Home of Northumbria Ministries, a prelude to the Northumbria Community.     

As the founders pioneered and explored, a Community emerged around them, unplanned, spontaneous. Then out of a life actually being lived, with shared relationships and common values, a way of life was formed centred in ‘the one thing necessary’ of seeking God through Availability and Vulnerability. In discovering the history and heritage of Celtic Northumbria; the strong links to the saints and scholars of Ireland, the wisdom tradition of the Desert Fathers, the ‘mixed life’ of the Franciscans, there was a blending of cell and coracle, of monastery and mission, from which the language and ethos of the Community was born and is still sustained.

These core values became the ‘interpretive framework’ for the vocation and vision of all subsequent Companions in Community: a means of handing on the tradition. In 1992 we moved to our Mother House at Hetton Hall, representing the Nether Springs, and reflecting the heart, home and hospitality of a Monastic centre; a focus for our spirituality and a major expression of our life.

Officially adopting the name Northumbria Community in 1994, the now considerable growth resulted in a call to Community in 1995, which sought to move roles and responsibility from the Founders to the Few to the Many. This led to the re-formation of the Community Council and began a period of training and preparation for Trevor Miller who would succeed John and partner Roy in Community leadership. In Jan 98 at Bradford Cathedral John and Linda formally relinquished the responsibility they shared for the Community in order to concentrate on pioneering the European vision of the Celtic arc, from Turkey to Ireland.

new_monasticismLatter years have seen the continuing fulfilment of the truth that ‘there can be no Northumbrian spirituality without the monastery and the monastery exists for mission’, as the task of ‘building the new on foundations of old’ and ‘the giving away of that which is not ours to keep’ continues to influence many.  United in ‘a monasticism of the heart’, committed to prayer and mission, Companions in Community now live Alone and Together in many parts of the world.

A fuller exposition of the Community's history will be posted in this section very soon!  Yes, we've been saying that for a long time, I know - but the advent of our new site will bring this forward... so do keep checking back

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Newsflash

On Sunday the 13th of February 2011 the words of the day 13 meditation were read aloud for the first time in our new 'Nether Springs' at Acton Home Farm. How apt and moving they were as we sat and prayed after this long journey home. This was the first day that the Community had been able to gather at our new Mother House, and the story of Achsah and Othniel was a clear reminder of God's faithfulness and provision for us as a Community after the turmoil of leaving Hetton Hall. 

Day 13 Meditation - Achsah and Othniel

And so it was that Achsah kept urging Othniel her husband
to ask from her father a field.
She lighted from off her ass, and Caleb said to her,
'What is it that you want?'
And she said to him, 'Give me a blessing,
for you have given me this dark, desert land;
now give me also springs of water.'
And her father gave her the upper and the nether springs.
Judges1:14-15

One of the things that many people have commented on is how well the familiar and the new have blended together, Acton Home Farm feels like home. But it's more than this, it also feels like a place of renewed purpose for us where the 'monastic' and the 'missional' sit closer together, as we begin to explore afresh the five monastic disciplines that underpinned our life at Hetton Hall: Worship, Work, Study, Solitude and Community. The physical move to Acton Home Farm is now complete, but the transition into this new chapter of our Community's life is still continuing as we build on the foundations of old, and seek God for his purposes for us in this wonderful place. 

At the rebuIlding of the Abbey on Iona, George Macleod prayed a prayer that voices our prayers:

It is not just the interior of the walls, it is our own inner beings you have renewed. We are your temple not made by hands. We are your body. If every wall should crumble, and every church decay, we are your habitation. Nearer are you than breathing, closer than hands and feet. Ours are the eyes with which you, in the mystery, look out in compassion on the world. So we bless you for this place, for your directing of us, your redeeming of us, and your indwelling. Take us 'outside the camp', Lord, outside holiness, out to where soldiers gamble, and thieves curse, and nations clash at the cross-roads of the world... So shall this building be justified.

The sounds of saws and hammers are giving way to the sounds of chapel bell, prayers and laughter. Come and join with us as we seek God and build a new home together.