PT: How did you end up taking on the role as prior for this new community?
AL: I grew up in Sweden just outside of Stockholm in the Swedish pentecostal Church. After a brief stint studying theology in the States and returning to Sweden, I moved to the UK to marry my wife. I trained for ordination a couple of years later, and then my rector saw an article about this new thing being organised by the Archbishop, called the Community of St Anselm. He suggested that I should apply for the position of prior. I thought he was joking. I had almost no time to get the application in. My wife and I decided that we’d get the paper work in and discern as we go. And here we are. We believed it was right for us, and so did the panel the Archbishop put together.
PT: When I think about religious communities, my initial impression would be that it will be quite traditional and high church. Is that right? AL: In terms of churchmanship, we’re drawing together people from the whole range of the Christian family tree. The spread of denominations and expressions among the applicants was staggering. We’re going to have to find a common language, one that is probably going to be quite distinctive for this community, simply because of the level of translating we’re going to have to do before we understand each other in worship. It is an Anglican community (it tends to be when the Archbishop is heading it up!) but the vocation is certainly ecumenical. It will be a set pattern for worship in terms of the daily routine, and we will be using the normal morning prayer and daily Eucharist. We will have vespers later on, where there will be more space to experiment and explore the different gifts we bring. That will be the flexible time when we start to learn each other’s worship languages. But really, we’ll only be able to answer this question in a year’s time.
I have come to a point where I’ve experienced and called ‘home’ a range of expressions. I can deeply appreciate the particular gifts that the Lord has embedded in the various branches of the Church family tree. I can see both their strengths and their weaknesses. I think I’ve come to a point where I believe deeply that whatever ill besets one branch of the Christian family tree, the cure is found in another.
we can be bold in expecting a desire for deep discipleship in our young people
PT: Do you feel that the community will be shaped by the people who are part of it, as opposed to there being a clear vision and style projected onto it?
AL: I think it’s going to look a bit different from year to year. It’s not led by the members in that sense, but it will be lived by the members, and life gives shape to life. The Archbishop’s vision is definitely underpinning it. We will join and live under a rule that’s given, not negotiated. It’s about being shaped in the likeness of Christ.
PT: Why did the Archbishop want to create this community?
AL: Someone was helping him unpack the books in his study when he was moving in, and asked him what he was going to do with all the space. He said, ‘I’m going to fill it with young people.’ There’s a long history of religious communities who have been resident in and supported the incumbent Archbishop in ministry and mission. The Archbishop looked and saw the opportunity to do something different - and something that will empower people to live with integrity - that is a very important aspect in the Archbishops’s vision; bringing together thought, word and deed in discipleship to Christ and transformation of the world.
PT: Why is the community limited to people in the 20-35 age bracket?
AL: One of the answers is that, as the Archbishop said, he just wants to fill the place with young people because that brings a change of culture and energy in itself. I had a wonderful email exchange with a dear old nun, I think she was pushing 90, who asked the same question, ‘Why young people? When it comes to prayer and service I know lots of people who can run circles around youngsters. And I said: ‘That’s absolutely right. So do I!’ We’re picking young people because we want to give that as a gift to the next generation. We want to make sure that in 60 years time there are 90 year-olds who can run circles around the youngsters in terms of prayer and service to the poor! It’s about giving the gift of people who have been shaped by prayer for the bulk of their life, to the generations to come.
PT: I think about this a lot. I fear for a future without praying communities. We don’t know what the impact on the world will be if these groups of people don’t exist.
AL: Oh but they will! They’re springing up like mushrooms. I see the seeds. I see the seeds everywhere. I think that’s another answer to ‘why now?’ This is just something that the Spirit is doing. And I believe that the Spirit planted this vision in the Archbishop’s heart, shaping his life and then planting the vision in his heart for such a time as this. Everywhere you look you see people talking about community, from politicians to the international community which is funding the various financial recoveries and bailouts. We don’t talk about ‘world banks’ in the press, we talk about the ‘international community’. Everyone knows that there is something valuable in community and wants to lay hold of it and articulate it and live it. But what does that look like in reality? The Church has an answer to that, because we’ve lived community for generations. Prayerful community, where you share a common unity, is what we do. We are one in Christ and on a level that’s deeper than the fact that we all shop on the same high street or that we all want to band together for a particular purpose. We share a common identity. We are enclosed in Christ.
PT: Do you feel encouraged by the amount of interest you’ve had? AL: We have about 500 people who started the application process. That’s staggering. That’s with virtually no PR… It is absolutely staggering. Do people want to be wholehearted followers of Christ? Yes. That’s the unequivocal answer judging by the numbers. It seems like the more we say, ‘Hey, this is going to be really demanding,’ the more people we get to join. That’s a slight exaggeration, but as a general picture it holds true. So, the demands of discipleship don’t scare people off.
The kind of thing we’re doing here is for the people who are saying: ‘Right Jesus is for me, and I’m for Jesus. What does that look like in my life? What do the radical demands of Jesus to take up my cross and follow him mean? What does it mean to put everything I am and everything I have on the line for Jesus?’
Should we place higher demands on our young people? I would say that we can be bold in expecting a desire for deep discipleship in our young people. That’s not about placing demands externally, it’s about helping every follower of Christ to respond to the call of Christ in his or her heart to be a wholehearted disciple. And actually it’s about us who are in positions of leadership modelling it.
PT: A lot of people might read this article and not feel that it’s their calling to be part of a religious community, or that their stage of life determines that they can’t be. How can a busy youth worker incorporate some of the elements of this prayerful way of life in the midst of what they are doing?
AL: Interestingly enough, that’s one of the main questions that we’re setting out to answer. There’s a non-resident membership model as well, which I think is going to be arguably the most demanding of the membership models. The imagination of both the public and the press has been caught by this idea of completely removing yourself from the world. What I want to increase, to put in the imagination of the public, is this way of living a prayerful life, a life shaped by ancient ways of prayer and fellowship, while completely embedded in daily life. Our non-resident members will go on the same journey of discipleship and living a life shaped by prayer, growing in transparency of life, serving the poor as a regular component in their lives, but doing so completely embedded in the workplace. We are pursuing to build such lives, and put such tools in the hands of these people, that they are so aware of God’s presence to them and their presence to God, that they can take the space of 90 seconds between two phone calls to realign their hearts to him, discern what just happened in that phone call and where the presence of God is in it, and ask what the demands of the gospel in this situation are. Whether in a conversation with a young person, or a conversation about insuring an aircraft fleet, being a prayerful person, a person whose life is shaped by communication with God, is a way of life for the Church in the world. I believe that’s a huge component of what it is to be salt and life, a city on hill that can’t be hidden, a light that we put on a lampstand. I believe, and the Archbishop would say the same as well, that this kind of life, both in residence and in the workplace embedded form of membership, is going to help people build and live lives of integrity, where members will be known in society as trustworthy people, as people who do what they say and say what they do, people of their word. We’re looking to be shaped in the likeness of Jesus Christ in thought and word and deed, because he is our model. He is our integrity. He’s not just a benchmark to measure ourselves against but he is a constant presence in our hearts saying through his Holy Spirit, ‘Think like this, do like this, be like Jesus, and here is the grace to do it.’
