Books
Fuller reflections on the Seven Ss and our Nazareth Rule of Life and the theological basis of the community can be found in Richard Carter's The City is My Monastery: A Contemporary Rule of Life, available below.
Richard Carter The City is My Monastery: A Contemporary Rule of Life, 2019
Richard Carter swapped a life of simplicity with an Anglican religious order in the Solomon Islands for parish ministry in one of London's busiest churches, St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Seeing a need for monastic values in the centre of the city, he founded the Nazareth Community. Its members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to replenish stressed lives, to acknowledge their dependence on God's grace and to learn to live generously.
Part story, part spiritual meditation, The City is My Monastery offers spiritual wisdom for daily life rooted in the Nazareth Community's seven guiding principles: Silence, Service, Scripture, Sacrament, Sharing, Sabbath Time and Staying.
Fuller Reflections on the experience of our Community and Spiritual path together as we have tried to live this rule of life can be found in:
Richard Carter Letters from Nazareth: A Contemplative Journey Home, 2023
This wise and beautiful book, written in the form of spiritual letters, reflects on the themes of home and being at home: with ourselves, with each other, with the times we are living through, and with God. Nazareth, where Jesus spent his first thirty years, was a physical home but also a spiritual home and the place of nurture, dreaming, formation and becoming.
Richard Carter offers a wealth of insight for experiencing how, as Christians, we carry Nazareth, the place of God’s incarnate presence, with us wherever we are and how it becomes a home where the Word is made flesh again in our lives and we find our place of deepest belonging.
Rich in biblical reflection, poetic meditation and practical guidance for living in demanding times, Letters from Nazareth abounds in simple yet profound wisdom for our world today.
Samuel Wells The Nazareth Manifesto, 2023
A Nazareth Manifesto is an eloquent and impassioned ecumenical proposal for re-envisioning Christianity’s approach to social engagement away from working “for” the people to being “with” them.
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Questions the effectiveness of the current trend of intervention as a means of fixing the problems of people in distressed and disadvantaged circumstances
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Argues that Jesus spent 90% of his life simply being among the people of Nazareth, sharing their hopes and struggles, therefore Christians should place a similar emphasis on being alongside people in need rather than hastening to impose solutions
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Written by a respected priest and broadcaster and renowned Christian ethicist and preacher
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Supported by historical, contemporary, exegetical and anecdotal illustrations
Samuel Wells, ed. Finding Abundance in Scarcity, 2021
All churches have had to learn to do things differently during closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. None has been more imaginative or inventive than London's St Martin-in-the-Fields. Through its HeartEdge programmes, it has continued many aspects of its ministry, and developed significant new initiatives and is now a virtual college with an impressively varied programme for practitioners.
Here the St Martin's team reflects theologically and share its newly found pastoral and practical wisdom in many areas:
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Finding God in Lockdown
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Meeting God and One Another Online
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Rediscovering Contemplative Prayer
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Facing Grief amidst Separation
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Preaching at Such a Time as This
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Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Time
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Hearing Scripture Together in Difficult Times
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Praying through Crisis
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Creating a Community of Practitioners
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Finding Faith at Home
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Conclusion: A Strategy for Transformation
Richard Carter Who is My Neighbour? THE GLOBAL AND PERSONAL CHALLENGE, 2018
What should Christ’s injunction to ‘love your neighbour’ mean in practice today?
A team of leading theologians and practitioners explores this question and considers its bearing on the politics of poverty, discrimination, immigration, ecology and the fallout from recent political upheavals in Europe and America.
Richard Carter In Search of the Lost: The Modern Martyrs of Melanesia, 2006
In 2003, a story shook the Anglican world in general and Anglican monastic life in particular. On August 8th, seven members of The Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican order of Christian brothers living a simple and prayerful life and known for their peace work throughout the South Pacific and beyond, were brutally murdered as a result of ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands. They had been taken hostage five months earlier. The Melanesian Brotherhood is the largest Anglican religious community in the world with over 300 brothers and more than 300 novices and has received a United Nations award for its peace work. From 1990-2005, Richard Carter, a British priest, was tutor, chaplain to the Melanesian Brotherhood, eventually becoming a brother himself. This extraordinary, powerful and moving book is based on his diaries from that agonizing time for the Community. It tells the harrowing story of the loss of seven good, young and holy lives and the aftermath of those deaths. It tells the story of individuals and a community trying to make sense of faith in the face of fierce conflict and tragedy. It recounts the challenge of living out the Christian faith when confronted by great fear and loss. It is thus a story for everyman. Rowan Williams writes a preface.
Samuel Wells Liturgy on the Edge: Pastoral and attractional worship, 2018
This practical companion to creating pastoral liturgies arises from the vibrant ministry of St Martin-in-the-Fields and is designed to aid local ministry teams in devising forms of worship outside and beyond the scope of authorised church liturgy, yet in sympathy with its purposes and structures.
It includes outline liturgies for:
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regular pastoral services, such as an informal Eucharist, worship for small groups or for a church away-day, a dementia-friendly service, a healing service, interfaith ceremonies.
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acute pastoral needs, such as services for communities affected by local tragedy, those experiencing loss through violence.
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outreach services in the open air or welcoming people into sacred space.
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special services though the year for Homelessness Sunday, Prisoners Week, Holy Week, Harvest, Remembrance, a community carol service and more.
Each section is introduced with a reflection on theory and practice, and each item has a commentary on theological, liturgical and pastoral choices made with the aim of enabling practitioners to adapt and create liturgies for their own contexts.
