A Taste of the Monastic


I’m really impressed with BBC’s reality series The Monastery, where a Benedictine monastery in England opens its doors to 5 lay-people for 40 days and nights to give them a taste of the monastic life. I’m amazed at how positively Christianity is portrayed in it – usually British TV will do everything to put down anything to do with Christianity. Actually I think this is the best piece of evangelism I’ve seen in years. I’m very impressed by the monks and the Abbott in particular – he seems to have a lot of godly wisdom, is able to say the right thing at the right time and understands where these guys are coming from. Anyway the whole experiment seems like exactly what Jesus did – he offered people the chance to follow him and do all the stuff with him, he didn’t ask them to take a degree course or make a profession of faith. Peter, James and John and those guys just got stuck in with what Jesus was doing and lived the life. And it’s the same with these guys in the Benedictine monastery, they’re getting this amazing opportunity to be immersed in Christian spirituality (though it’s not forced down their throats) with the result that they’re really engaging with God himself! There was an interesting article in the Belfast Telegraph last Friday about one of the participants, Gary McCormick (it’s class hearing his strong Larne accent on the show!) and it turns out he’s written a book about his life. And the Tall Skinny Kiwi has also got some interesting stuff on monasticism here. Unfortunately there are only 3 episodes in the series and the last one is next Tuesday night, but I’ve read that they hope to do it again. Let’s pray that it continues to be something that God uses for his glory.