The Arbor
Like those among the early church, the community called The Arbor shares time, space, belongings, finances, and life with one another. Individuals within The Arbor commit to living their lives guided by traditional practices of Christian faith such as hospitality, prayer, discernment, worship, fellowship, forgiveness, and simple living.
Prayer
Prayer is at the same time the easiest and most difficult practice within the life of The Arbor. While we want to say without doubt that life is a prayer, we are aware that we must work diligently to cultivate prayer within our life - what an irony! Though we find ourselves engaging God and one another through many different 'types' of praying, our prayer life is shaped by Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours. We often find that silence is the most powerful form of prayer we practice. Symbolic acts, music, painting, writing, and reading scripture are also significant means of expression and spiritual formation as we pray both alone and corporately.
Through the Rule of The Arbor, we pray corporately on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (8:30am) and Thursday evenings (6:00pm-ish). Residents of The Arbor are expected to participate in all corporate prayer times. In many ways, corporate prayer, along with shared meals and shared work/ministry through Hyaets, helps cultivate a common life within residents of The Arbor through a degree of common daily/weekly schedule and common practice. Non-resident members are encouraged to participate in corporate prayers at least once per month on the first Thrusday. In addition, residents of The Arbor are expected to sustain, cultivate, and develop personal prayer as well.
Praying with and for our neighborhood and our neighbors is a particularly significant part of our practice of prayer. Current neighborhood prayer requests are included and updated in our monthly Hyaets Update e-mail. We invite you to subscribe to our monthly e-mail updates.
