Northumbria Community.com

A personal note from John and Linda Skinner who together with Andy Raine founded the Northumbria Community.

"We were on retreat at Alnmouth friary on the beautiful Northumberland coast when we first heard the call to community.
Newly married, we were seeking the Lord for a 'word for our life' and were surprised by 'community' an unexpected call for rather shy and solitary people - that was 30 years ago.

Of late, we have been gathering together the memories and papers that tell the story of the Northumbria Community. Intended as a book it soon became evident that our notes and the many documents and papers collected over two decades loaned themselves to publication over the internet.

We are now happy to make them available on northumbriacommunity.com and to provide narrative. We hope they will serve as a resource to all those called to community and a new monasticism. We pray they will inspire a new generation of community to respond to the call of the desert. Today, we are living in Turkey, continuing God's call in the desert.

'To go they knew not where,
to find they knew not what...'

John & Linda

A personal note from Andy Raine.

I feel very privileged to have been part of the journey that has led to the development of Northumbria Community.
 
When we began we could never have known how many far-flung individuals would be touched and challenged encouraged and influenced. It was mostly a struggle to survive and a determination to live authentically what God had given us so far 'reality will be your strength' I had been told. When the Northumbrian Office was published as 'Celtic Daily Prayer' the ripples spread inevitably far beyond any direct personal contact.

Out of our broken-ness and personal failure and the inescapable challenge of being loved by God had emerged something
that speaks of 'vulnerability and availability.' Just as the Daily Office has been appreciated and used by many who have never formally been part of the community so we hope that the memories of our early struggles will meet with resonances in all kinds of people also.

Within the Community and beyond it, the real edge is wherever the people of God have the courage to say YES to Him, YES to risky living, and are living an authentic YES to availability and vulnerability. The journey is bigger than any of us, and for me has involved many relationships - formative, rich, costly,{at times strained almost to breaking point} - but the most important relationship of all is with a living Jesus who we must always keep pointing to, because as Frederick Buechner says...

'there's something about His eyes and His voice,
there's something about the way
He carries His head, His hands,
the way He carries His cross
the way He carries me.'

Andy Raine

Please note that this is not the website of the Northumbria Community. To visit the Northumbria Community go to www.northumbriacommunity.org

Welcome to the history of the foundation
of the Northumbria Community.

This site was first published on the
internet in 2002. Its objective was to present
honest, accurate and inside information
about the people, places and events that led
up to the foundation of the Northumbria Community.
That objective is unchanged.

Sponsored by EConnexion
this new and revised site has been edited and
designed to make it more user friendly
and accessible. Used in conjunction
with emigre: a way for living
it should be of particular use to those who have
an academic, popular or personal interest
in a new type of monasticism.

This site is also an essential resource and part of
the curriculum for those taking part in: emigre: an introduction to a new type of monasticism. at the EConnexion School of New Monasticism.