It’s easiest to share what Commoners is about from my own personal perspective. I am an evangelical* and have spent most of my life around churches that are disconnected from the tradition of liturgy and religious orders that follow the monastic form and the disciplined following of a Rule of Life. For most of my life the rhythm of the Christian calendar was also something foreign and adhering to a set rhythm of daily prayer using pre-written or memorized prayers would have been seen as legalistic.

My journey has brought me to a place where I am still firmly grounded in the evangelical stream of the Christian faith but have discovered and am being enriched by the forms of living out my desire to follow and be like Jesus mentioned above.

I am a Wesleyan Methodist Minister in New Zealand/Aotearoa. My responsibility as a Minister is seated in missionary activity largely played out in a local, New Zealand/Aotearoa capacity. I entered the Wesleyan tradition because of an identification with John Wesley’s marriage between a strong evangelical approach to the Gospel and the activity of justice and social transformation in the world around him and those who followed him. That holistic approach to the Christian faith resonates with me. In learning more about Wesley I have come to appreciate the structure he put in place for the early Methodist movement – a movement which called on its adherents to pursue holiness through a disciplined life.

Alongside this I have come to appreciate the push of my greatest theological hero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, towards a monastic style of life that implemented a structured approach to the use of spiritual disciplines to shape the life of the believer. For Bonhoeffer that was centred around a strong emphasis on living out the challenges of Jesus’ Sermon on Mount.

Both of these men were not introducing anything new, they were simply gleaning from traditions and forms of expression that have long been a part of the outworking of the Christian Church and its shaping of those within it both communally and individually throughout its 2000 year history. The forming of Commoners is nothing new, it simply fits within that same stream, connecting us as followers of Jesus of Nazareth to the history and traditions that have come before us; planting us firmly within some of the practices that have grounded our wider family for generations, enriching and deepening many who have taken the call towards Christ-likeness seriously.

The Commoners Rule of Life is the personal Rule I desire to follow. The spiritual disciplines within it are those that I feel compelled to be adhering to in my own life. I am no expert in these things and am still learning to find space to implement some of the rhythm as I seek to live it out. I have extended it to others after hearing many around me who have grown up disconnected from this form of living our faith, expressing a desire for the same thing. If what I am doing can benefit others then let’s do the same thing together.

The Guide for Common Bands and the Guide for a Commoners Worship Service exist for groups of people following the Commoners Rule of Life and local churches who may wish to use Commoners to enrich the lives of their members. They are there to help us live out part of the communal aspect of the Christian life, for Christianity is, without question, social.

The term ‘Commoners’ was chosen as it expresses a number of things. It pushes against the cultural drive for that which draws attention to us and says that God can be found in the mundane. It says that we wish to weave the recognition of the presence of God into the common and ordinary – that which we do every day. It says that the experience of God is not just the domain of the extraordinary or hyped. It says that when we take out the garbage, clean the toilets, talk to our neighbour, butter our toast and every other activity of life, that as Commoners we honour that as a space to be faithful to our Master, Jesus. The term Commoners also denotes that we desire for the spiritual disciplines within the Commoners Rule of Life to be ‘common’ activities for us – normal things we do.

The use of the name ‘Commoners’ is also a push back against hierarchical power and the abuse thereof. it is a push back against the idea that some people are better and more valuable than others. It takes seriously the idea that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It is honouring of those our society pushes to the margins, those who are forgotten and looked down on and it says that we are with those people; that we are them. It says that we are ‘common’.

…aaaaand let’s be honest, it’s a great play on the term ‘Common Prayer’, which is the title of the book that sets the prayer rhythm for the life of the Commoner. Common Prayer denotes prayers and a rhythm being engaged by many Christians in many places – it’s something we have in ‘common’.

Nobody owns Commoners. It is a community of people adhering to a basic Rule of Life from different geographical locations, within different streams of the Christian faith, and maybe some who do not comfortably claim to be part of that faith but want to be faithful to the person of Jesus. It exists to be adopted by individuals and as a tool for local churches who wish to offer it to their faith community.

My prayer is that you would find something of value in it for your life.

May you be shaped to be more like Jesus in your daily life. May the world know a little more of the Kingdom of God and the person of Jesus because of the life you live. May glimmers of the in-breaking of God’s world shine forth through you. May the presence of the shaping Holy Spirit be a daily reality for you and may the glimpse of the world to come in the resurrected Christ fill you with hope as you live a life faithful to our God of justice.

Your brother in the community of Jesus the Christ,

Frank Ritchie

Profile: I work as the Education and Advocacy Manager for TEAR Fund NZ, an international aid and development organisation working with marginalized individuals and communities in the majority world. In my capacity in that role I also serve as a board member for Micah Challenge New Zealand. I am licensed as a Minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand (Commoners exists independently from this movement though I have lines of accountability within the WMCNZ), serve in the capacity of a Servant Leader within the local church I attend and am married to a fine woman with whom I have one lovely daughter.

* I use the term ‘evangelical’ knowing that it means many different things for many different people and that for some it carries negative connotations. I use it as an identification with people such as John Wesley and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the sense of faith they carried as distinct from other forms of Christianity. I do not use it in line with places where it has been used to denote people who identify themselves as evangelicals Christians and who are militant, anti-science and fearful of the culture around them.