By Andrea Lingle

Where are you this morning? Chances are, you are not sitting at my breakfast table with me. We have not shared a steaming mug of English Breakfast tea. We haven’t looked out over my languishing garden, speculating about how next year we will, for sure, have time to put in those raised beds.

The Missional Wisdom Foundation is an experimental body. What is its aim? To ask the question: What is a community of grace? A community is certainly a gathering of people, but does it mean more than that? Is proximity required to form healthy community?

From Together by Larry Duggins:

The concept of the Trinity is much more than a bit of Christian theologic trivia. The incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection all take on new meaning when seen through the lens of the Trinity. In fact, it may be the most important single concept to appreciate in Christianity. The understanding that community—three together as one—is essential to the nature of God informs and enlightens practically every aspect of being a Christian person.

God loves us because it is the very nature of God to love.

God wants us to love because it is the very nature of God to love.

God wants us to love each other because it is the very nature of God to love.

One of the ongoing experiments that the Missional Wisdom Foundation is running is the Dispersed Community. Is it possible to nurture, learn from, and receive grace from a dispersed community? Over the next few weeks, the Wisdom for the Way will be exploring ways that the Dispersed Community has explored the question of being a Community of Grace.

While you might not have gathered with me this morning, at 9:00 am this morning, it is possible that your spirit joined with mine with the current Touchstones breath prayer: Beautiful Lord, meet me with grace. It is a simple practice that anchors my day. At 9:00 am and 9:00 pm, a reminder goes off on my watch telling me to pause and pray. What makes the practice powerful to me is that I imagine that the Dispersed Community is joining me in muttering this prayer.

What does this do?

Practically it reminds me twice a day that I have chosen to be a person of prayer. It reminds me twice a day that I have chosen to participate in the Dispersed Community of the Missional Wisdom Foundation. And it reminds me twice a day that I have chosen to wonder what a community of grace is, how it works, and how it nurtures me with grace. To be people of Spirit is a difficult thing to define. It is a thing of faith. It could be considered unproven, unknowable, unclear. That is why I find it helpful to find simple practices that connect my spirit to yours. Together we can encounter this mystery. Nothing fancy. Just a touchstone. A day bounded by prayer and a moment of encounter. Could we learn to experience the grace of community in a moment of whispered prayer?

I hope so. Twice a day.