A huge focus for SOMA from before it even started is prayer. SOMA began as a result of a move of God at Canterbury in July 1978 just before the Lambeth Conference, and in the same month our current National Director was born! Before this revival meeting, where 300 Global South bishops and guests from around the world found themselves filed with the Spirit and dancing in the aisles, there was a groundswell of prayer, with planning meetings for the conference given over to half prayer and half business, and BOOM! The Spirit Fell. That story is out of print, but you can read a scan here.

Fast forward nearly half a century and Canterbury seems to still be on the Lord’s heart.

SOMA has a dream that we are in the slow process of developing. It’s a dream that began two years ago in Downpatrick, and has begun to be forged in the fire. The dream is that local communities of prayer (abbeys) will be inspired by the hope that comes from seeing God’s fires of revival around the world, and the perseverance of the saints in times and places that are tough, and be equipped to take that mission across their region, country and the world. We want to see these bases all over the world, but especially dear to my heart is the British Isles - where there is a need to evangelise a nation once more.

In Canterbury we may have found one such base, a ground zero for a heart movement to bring prayer and mission, word and Spirit to the nation.

Richard visits with Barney de Berry and Stephen Carter at SMB.

At our National Leadership Team meeting with trustees, staff and team, Barney de Berry, vicar of St Mary Bredin, explained how his heart had been warmed by the language of an Abbey too. He had read the words in the epilogue to The Lion Roars musing whether we in the Church of England are being called ‘into the desert like ancestors of old. The place where religious orders form.’

“A place where an army of ‘Abba’s and ‘Abbesses’ building a spiritual monastery of faith that will learn to move in word and spirit once more and go on missions up and down the land. Such ancient orders had overseers who had jurisdictions apart from the episcopacy. Abbots and Abbesses of remarkable faith, love, vision and holiness who called others to a rule of faith, sacrifice and obedience around them. People you could catch a vision from, catch a calling from, catch a gifting from.

Imagine a new reality: One where each person who wanted it could opt into a ‘religious order’ with an overseer who knew them by name, visited their churches, spoke into their lives, provided prophetic and pastoral feedback and accountability and called them upwards to a better future. From this very month, ‘Abbas’ could emerge who already have an overseeing ministry distinct from the bishops. Abbots and Abbesses who provide the sort of overseeing that most people are crying out for anyway. All around the Church of England these men and women exist. They’ve often been overlooked for institutional roles, but naturally gather many around them.

Friends, is this a time for a revolution…? To establish a new form of spiritual abbey that can bring genuine life to this nation, and do the hard work of working on our own multiple failings while we are there. As a religious order in the Anglican Communion / Church of England there will be things its novitiates (exploring belonging), oblates (lay members) and fully signed up members can and cannot be asked to do, determined by its rule of life.

It may be that this becomes the lifeboat built within a sinking ship. It might be that it does not fly at all. But for those who want the family to stay together it may well be the least tragic way of providing space to stay together that has yet been placed on the table, and it might even be the source of a whole new life and energy that ultimately comes back home as Jacob did and enables the family name to carry on and ensure the heritage of Abraham continued.”

Barney told his story of being called to rebuild the ancient ruins, and how on a highly productive sabbatical he realised that the ruins the Lord had drawn him to was the ancient abbey in Canterbury set up by St Augustine…

As he thought and mused and prayed he had the compelling revelation that “We can’t launch an abbey - we have to build it”

Barney explained that the image of the abbey has become a vision for him of what the church he leads is called to be and do. It is a church that needs to ‘be obedient to a deposit of faithfulness,’ the legacy of generations of faithful, faith-filled praying people. An outpost of the Kingdom of God, that is not aiming to be the last spiritual site standing as decline and despondency set in around them, but a place of sanctuary and safety, a basecamp for invasion sending out people to spread the Kingdom of God, equip, train, heal and send…

This has been for Barney it has been a 9 year+ journey of discernment. When he began to pray in the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey he was struck that this first Roman missionary to the English speaking world was not stuffy or dull. Rather his mission was full of amazing stories of courage and bold proclamation of Christ. One great story is told by a fourteenth century chronicler and Benedictine monk, Thorn:

“There was not far from the city [of Canterbury] towards the east, as it were midway between the church of St. Martin and the walls of the city, a temple or idol-house where King Aethelberht according to the rites of his tribe was wont to pray, and with his nobles to sacrifice to his demons and not to God: which temple Augustine purged from the pollutions and filth of the Gentiles; and, having broken the image which was in it, changed it into a church, and dedicated it in the name of the martyr St. Pancras—and this was the first church dedicated by St. Augustine. There is still extant an altar in the southern porticus of the same church, at which the same Augustine was wont to celebrate, where formerly had stood the idol of the king—at which altar, while Augustine was celebrating mass for the first time, the devil, seeing himself driven out from the home which he had inhabited for long ages, tried to overturn from the foundations the aforesaid church: the marks of which are still apparent on the exterior eastern wall of the abovementioned porticus. (Routledge: Roman Foundations at St Pancras, 103)”

SOMA leaders gather to pray at Stanton House, Oxford, inspired by Barney’s charge.

As Barney reflected on what an Abbey could be today, his sense was it was not a physical building, rebuilt or new, but a spiritual one. The old abbey at Canterbury was:

- A missionary school - ground zero for the English speaking church in the world.

- An outpost for mission establishing other outposts

- A centre of continual prayer

To get started on this journey St Mary Bredin have begun to take up John Mark Comer’s 9 spiritual disciplines and rules of life and produced them in to a simple booklet with daily, weekly and monthly practices.

A member adopts a rule of life, and signs up to values and committed…

As he tries to be obedient to this deposit of faithfulness Barney is asking: Why not? Why not get these corporate rhythms of prayer firmly established in our church. Why not be an outpost in a new move of evangelisation? Why not be obedient when that is what the Lord has commanded us to do?

At SOMA we are still on a direction of discerning how God wants us to respond to this Abbey call. Abbots sent and deployed ministry teams across boundaries and borders as we do. Abbeys were the communities of prayer we long to be. But it is a journey to the knees, not a strategy nor a soundbite. One that needs and requires a rule of life to underpin it. If it is a journey you are interested in joining in why not talk to Barney, or talk to one of our team?

In Canterbury Abbey Habakkuk 3:2 has become the abbey prayer…

Canterbury Abbey

Grandma’s and Birdboxes

Deliverance Ministry