We’ve been doing this House Thing for a couple of years now, and as happens from time to time, this is another of those hinge points. This is a crucial moment in our journey where we again need to pause, take a look around, turn our ears to God, assess where things are going and ask “what’s next?”

The contract at 93 will be up for renewal early September, Seb will be jetting off to his fantastic YWAM DTS in Mexico, Jack’s planning to start travelling and Sumanth will likely be with us only to the end of the year. At least one of our houses won’t be affordable. Way more important than all that though is that we always want to be doing what God’s blessing rather than asking God to bless our plans. If the cloud moves, so must we.

So facing all this we had the best ever knee-jerk reaction: we decided to start by praying. Starting at 9am on a Saturday we each took on an hour or two, filling around 24 hours between us.

Then for our Sunday morning meeting as well as singing a few songs we spent the time remembering together. Before looking forward we wanted to look back and tell stories of the highs and lows, and to generally give God some honour for all the crazy stuff He’s done among us since early 2016.

A collaborative piece now hung over the stairwell at #33

I taped a few sheets of paper to the floor and drew a timeline. After bashing out some songs we each grabbed a pen, got on our hands and knees (and toes, and elbows) and got scribbling. Seems quite a lot has happened (I found this blog v helpful). It was an act of thanks, of worship. It turns out remembering can be fun, too.

Then came the unknown bit. Starting with sharing everything God had said to us while we’d been praying, the next question Andy asked was a little more blue-sky: “what kind of life do you want to live?” It’s so important we build our lives around the vision that God gives and not simply one or a few leader’s ideas, and that takes really truly hearing one another’s hearts.

And finally, on to practicals. Thankfully we have options that we’re working through.

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Jokes.

We’re still working things out so I don’t want to say too much right yet, but I’ll post soon.

And finally, a word to our invisible artillery. I’m referring to everyone who prays for us and sends through notes of encouragement, you guys are our spiritual backbone. You really are all the bee’s knees, the cat’s whiskers, the fish’s gills, the horse’s hooves, the ocean’s wave, the Scotsman’s porridge, the Cartwright’s beard.

Please pray for us. Pray God gives us wisdom, for the prophetic gifting to be unlocked among us, for us to know God’s heart. Send us any wisdom or prophetic words you have for us, we really value them.

Thank you, love you all dearly.

See ya.