One of the guys I admire and have been following on the net, is a fellow by the name of Mark Van Steenwyk, who founded Missio Dei, an Anabaptist new monastic missional community in Minneapolis. I admire Mark for the work he is doing and for the way he rallies others who share the same or similar vision to join together to dialogue with The Jesus Manifesto and Christiarchy.
But it is the Breviary that Missio Dei recently published that I am going to write about in the coming weeks as I start to utilise the breviary for morning and afternoon prayers. My plan is to start tomorrow morning, and try establish a rhythm of spending time with God in the mornings and afternoons with the aid of the breviary. Why did they create the breviary?
First, we wanted something simple and relatively accessible. Many of the prayer books out there have a steep learning curve or require multiple volumes. (This is why monastics, especially mendicants, started publishing breviaries—single volume books of prayer that could be carried easily).
Second, we wanted something that reflected our contextual commitment and a missional sensibility. Third, we wanted a prayer book that fit with our Anabaptist theology.
The breviary is also available online at the breviary website as a daily page, or as an e-book, or better yet, support the work of Missio Dei and buy one from Amazon and leave a review — which I will be doing once I start following the prayers. There are already some great reviews from Tom & Christine Sine amongst others!
