In Acts the Spirit is the missionary. At KLC we seek to accompany the Spirit on his mission rather than becoming messianic ourselves. Spirituality is the hub around which all other Christian vocation and activity revolves. This means we prioritise prayer and other spiritual rhythms.
An “oratory” is a place for prayer. Our hope at KLC is in the coming years to have an actual campus with a sanctuary for prayer and worship. For now our oratory is this page even as we encourage one another to find regular places and times for prayer.
We have called our oratory The Julian of Norwich Oratory. Julian (c. 1343-1416) was an English anchoress who lived in Norwich, not far from Cambridge! Her Revelations of Divine Love are the first, extant English language writings by a woman. While at KLC we celebrate the achievements of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, like all Christians we long for the church to be united, and Julian lived before the split/s that developed in the sixteenth centuries onwards. As Evangelical, KLC welcomes the involvement of orthodox Christians of all traditions. Julian lived through the painful years of the Black Death, and KLC was born during the Covid pandemic. KLC also continues to be enriched by the gifts of many women – in all these ways we find the name helpful.
Spirituality is above all a practice rather than about reading more books. We encourage you not to make the typical academic mistake of thinking that having read many books about spirituality that you are now spiritual! Books are useful in introducing us to the practices that Christians have developed and found helpful down through the ages.
Among Evangelicals, the person who has done more to develop and promote Christian spirituality in recent decades is the late Eugene Peterson. You can read his story in Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson (Milton Keynes: Authentic, 2020). Peterson published many books in this area and they are all worth reading. Christian spirituality should always keep Word and Spirit together and Peterson is exemplary in this respect. However, he recognized that Evangelicalism has limited resources in this area of spirituality and that inevitably we need to draw on the rich resources of other traditions. See in this respect his annotated bibliography, Take and Read.
One of the best writers on Christian spirituality today is the Catholic Martin Laird. His Trilogy Into the Silent Land; An Ocean of Light; and A Sunlit Absence is profound.
At our online Julian of Norwich Oratory prayer meetings, we pray together through a common liturgy, which you can find by clicking on the relevant month below.
Our monthly prayer hour is an important and enriching part of the community life of KLC. Sign up below (or on our “Events” page) to join the prayer mailing list. On this page you’ll also find links to our resources for your prayer and contemplation concerning some of the most pressing needs of our time.
Prayer is at the heart of KLC’s work. Under the leadership of Hugo Herfst, we will host an hour prayer meeting on the first Thursday of every month at 4pm UK time that is open to the whole KLC community.
At present, we have prepared a page of resources to help shape your prayers for the war in Ukraine. We hope soon to have a similar page devoted to the tragic events that continue to unfold in Gaza and Israel, and we encourage your prayers for this situation. Of course, our capacity for the development of such resources is limited, and so the lack of representation of any significant world event on this page is not an indication of lack of concern on our part. Please be at prayer and may prayer be a primary expression of our joining of the mission of the Spirit.
The Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge. Charity registered in England and Wales. Charity Number: 1191741
Kirby Laing Centre, The New Mill House, Unit 1, Chesterton Mill, French’s Road, Cambridge, CB4 3NP
© 2024 The Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge
