Welcome to Wondering about Colchester Boiler Room!
So you are interested in knowing what our Community is all about eh?
We think there are three parts that form us as a community, our heart, bones and skin...
On this page we will try and explain these 3 layers of our community and what we look like here in Colchester!
Our Heart:
The most important thing you can know about us is that we love Jesus. We believe that Jesus was God's son, that he came to earth and took on being both fully man and fully God (we know, it blows our minds too), that he lived a life fulfilling God's foretold promises and proclaiming God's Kingdom come. We believe this declaration of being God's son and having the ability to right all wrongs in this world ended up getting Jesus killed, but we also believe that after 3 days Jesus did just want he promised he would do and he rose FROM THE DEAD! And that he is alive right now at God the Fathers side. As people totally blown away by this story, we have come to believe that it is a very true story and we want to get to know this Jesus that lived on this earth, died and now lives again. We are not religious people, but we are relationship people. We can see how people have started seeing religion as just a bunch of rules that take all the fun out of life... but we want to be about promoting the idea of starting a relationship with God to enter into the fullest life we have ever known. As any good relationship forms it first starts with an interest and attraction... as relationships develop we wont deny that there are boundaries God asks us to walk in to continue to build a healthy relationship, but we don't want to tell you what those are, we want you to be discovering those for yourself... you know the old school way by simply reading your bible and spending as much time as you can talking it out with God (praying) and now and again hanging out with other people that are not perfect, but are working at getting to know Jesus better.
Our Bones:
The other good thing to know about us is that Colchester Boiler Room is a part of the 24-7 Prayer Movement. This isn't a new idea... but maybe its more like 24-7 Prayer re-inspired the old idea of setting aside time to pray... and not just pray by forming awkward little circle where everyone closes there eyes and folds their hands, but pray as creatively and imaginatively and as long as you can.
24-7 Prayer has popularized the idea of getting together with people and trying to form unbroken chains of prayer for as long as you can by simply getting each person to sign up to cover one hour of prayer... you've got five friends, then each of you cover an hour and you will have prayed collectively for 5 hours...working towards the idea of prayer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 24-7 Prayer also promoted the value of community... because one person praying on there own for 24 hours a day 7 days a week can seem impossible, but if you get 24 friends together and each just prays one hour everyday ... as the Body of Christ we can claim that we, TOGETHER, have prayed for 24 hours...
I highly suggest reading a copy of Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig if you are interested in hearing the full story of how the 24-7 Prayer Movement got started.
Now these communities that start forming around prayer is where it gets interesting. Because as a 24-7 Prayer community we claim to be a "Boiler Room" (I know, I know Christians always get excited about giving their "things" such creative and thought out names that it makes it just confusing, but bear with me). So the idea about using the name Boiler Room to describe what we do is because the Boiler Room in a house is where all the "heat" comes from.. .and it is where the "heat" come from that people are attracted and where people are attracted that is where the LIFE is. The Boiler Room is often the most important, but over looked room in the house. When it is working no one really notices it, but when it is NOT working the whole house can be in upheaval.
So what all this imagery is really trying to say is we believe that God is our Heat. He is the source of warmth and life... so if God is the heat and that heat is in the Boiler Room... well then we want to encourage people to get in their Boiler Rooms!! haha ok maybe that was going a bit far, but are you getting what we are about. We are about getting God/Jesus/Holy Spirit into the centre of everything we do, He isn't just an after thought or a Sunday morning Jolly. He is as important to us as your Boiler Room in your house is to you... its an every day thing!
Also a part of being a Boiler Room community means that we commit to the values of Prayer, Hospitality, Learning, Justice, Creativity and Mission. Our community invest into these values in a variety of ways and often refer to this as our Rhythm of Life. I highly suggest reading a copy of Punk Monk by Andy Freeman to hear more about how 24-7 Prayer started developing the idea of communities.
Our Skin:
So Colchester Boiler Room has been on a forming journey since it started in about 2004/5. But practically this is what we are now. We meet in a Community House on 170 Berechurch Rd in Marlborough Place estate. This house is provided for us by the Abbeyfield Community Project (APC). Marlborough Place estate is one of 6 new communities that are being built around the Abbeyfields. Six churches in Colchester heard about these new estates that were going to be built and realized that there were no plans in the works for building churches into these new developments. They wanted to change that, so they rallied together and formed a group and bought a house right on the Abbeyfeild Project. The house is a large 4 bedroom home with plenty of space for hosting community activities and gathering. In 2009 ACP approach the leaders of Colchester Boiler Room and invited them to be a part of the project. The leaders agreed and Colchester Boiler Room re-located itself to the Abbeyfield estate and focused our community life in it. Four years on and the Community House continues. It currently is home to one couple and two single people. The upstairs is a residence while the down stairs is shared space for the community. We have a permanent prayer room set up and regularly run prayer days. We also have set up one of the bedrooms as a guest room to invest in the value of Hospitality. The house is a massive blessing to Colchester Boiler Room and we are able to continue to use it as our hub as the couple living in the house work part-time for ACP which comes with the benefit of using the house.
Ok so if this has you interested (all this blabbing) then check out our Rhythms Page and it will explain a bit more about the life of our community.
