Become free from Algorithms.
What happens to our life when we turn the volume down? Who are we apart from the noise and distractions to which we’ve become addicted? What would we discover if we returned to silence, stillness, contemplation, and solace? What happens to us spiritually when we become free of religion, and begin experiencing a living faith? Who do we become when we are no longer disintegrated objects amidst billions of other disintegrated objects?
The Old Stone Chapel is not a thing.
The Old Stone Chapel has been in my heart to bring you for a very long time, but I didn’t know the best way to offer it to you.
You see, The Old Stone Chapel is not a building that exists anywhere, yet it exists everywhere that you exist. I’m not creating a NEW THING for you to do, or a place to go, and I have no desire to make this into any thing at all. However, over the last decade many of you have asked me to provide some way for people to experience what I’ve been talking about for so long. This is my attempt to provide a minimal framework to support your own spiritual discovery.
You and I are each…The Old Stone Chapel. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are the dwelling place of God. We are God’s image bearers. We are invited to be adopted as God’s own children. We are each His creation. This is why finding God cannot be subscribing to any religion. We will not find God in any perfunctory rituals, God is not a jeanie in a bottle and not a transactional vending machine. God isn’t out there, in there, over there, or up there, since there doesn’t truly exist. What exists is here…now… the Presence of God is God’s ontological existence, existing itself within each and every present moment. This Presence of God exists within us…evidenced by our own existence (in our nothingness apart from God). This presence is found not by doing anything, but by learning how to be with God…in God…and fully in our own lives.
“Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10)
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
So what exactly is The Old Stone Chapel?
The Old Stone Chapel is envisioned as an online contemplative experience, and hopefully we can also gather together in person in the future.
The Old Stone Chapel is a training experience where we are (built up) to see Beyond Everything with spiritual eyes It’s a way to gain “the mind of Christ” experientially and to discover the wisdom of God through the context of our own lives and in friendship.
Here’s how it works:
- Sign up to The Old Stone Chapel so that you can receive each invitation.
- Open the invite: It will contain instructions that the virtual audience will use for each experience.
- Find a comfortable chair, in a quiet place, during a quiet time, and put on a set of noise cancelling headphones.
- Your downloads will include PDF’s that you can print off, or refer to. They will include art images, song lyrics, notes and transcripts, links to licensed material, websites, etc.. which will be referenced and aggregated as part of the experience.
- There will be instruction, guidance and training in contemplation, stillness, and reflection. The experience will include music, video, art and photo images, poems, biblical instruction and prayer. It is a fully integrated, immersive experience that challenges our assumptions, awakens us to divine inner experience, trains us to see God’s revelation, and re-connects us to embody our love for one another in ways that will seem foreign to those who are used to modern religion.
- This is NOT entertainment. The goal is to remove anything that would stand in our way of experiencing the love of God. The training to learn how to sit still, and just be. It’s my hope and assumption that this will allow us to be as James Finley says: “completely taken over by the oceanic love of God that is welling up within us.”
- In simplest terms I aspire to lead all who will come toward three things:
- Zeal for God’s house (Us as The Old Stone Chapel)
- Communion with God in our most secret room (within our Old Stone Chapel)
- Self-emptying and serving all others motivated by genuine love (Other Old Stone Chapels)
What does this cost?
There is no financial cost to you. You pay with your time, but I believe it will be an investment that pays you back in ways you cannot fathom. We all have busy lives. I have a job just like each of you. This practice of resting in God has transformed my life, my marriage, my parenting, my friendships, my career, and everything I touch. If the Spirt who fills me, fills you in like manner, You will receive far more than you ever put in.
Some final thoughts on the The Old Stone Chapel
The Old Stone Chapel is you and me. The Kingdom of Heaven is here, now, in the midst of us and religion still wants to place it on the end of a carrot for us to chase until we die. I seek not to convert anyone, but for all comers to be completed by experiencing Heaven’s bliss anytime and anywhere we pay attention to it.
I lose nothing if no one comes. I gain nothing if many do. I am nothing and nobody here. I’m just your concierge pointing you to what is Real and True as best as I am able. I want us to discover how oblivious we are to the omnipresent, omniscient love of God that animates every particle of the Universe, and to transform our hearts of stone into soft, receptive, alive hearts of flesh…where we esteem others as greater than ourselves.
The Old Stone Chapel seeks to return each of us back into our lives with an embodied spirituality and faith, that makes all things new.
Not everyone will be able to receive this, but if you are one of those who can… who longs deeply in your soul, like a deer panting for water, then I invite you to come and take a big drink. Taste and see that the Lord is good.
