What is School of Love?
School of Love is about love-rooted discipleship. We seek to follow Christ into deep love of God and neighbor through an intentional way of living in our time: life together in Christ for others. Various strands of historic Christian expression inform our pursuit. The result is a discipleship that emphasizes deep formation into the Jesus-way, and justice, liberation, and beloved community across systemic divides in our city.
Why a School of Love?
The world is in upheaval. That includes the church, which is undergoing a kind of unmasking in our moment. To live deeply into the Jesus-way is thus exceedingly difficult in today’s environment. And to do that in a manner that breaks boundaries and joins us with others unlike ourselves? That is even more difficult! Our society is simply not designed for deep life together in Christ!
But there is reason to be hopeful. When the church has struggled through intense social challenges throughout history, certain movements have emerged as ways to experiment with new forms of life together in Christ. Think of the Hush Harbor gatherings of enslaved Africans and the Black prophetic church as a whole; various modes of Christian monasticism; Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘costly’ discipleship community in Finkenwalde, Germany; and Christian Base communities in Latin America.
We see ourselves humbly learning from and applying the lessons of these movements to recover a holistic and love-rooted discipleship in our time. And we’re doing so for the good of the church: we want to become deep followers of Christ because we deeply love the body of Christ.
How does School of Love work?
School of Love seeks love-rooted discipleship by directing cohorts of approximately twenty-five participants, equally People of Color and white, for approximately eighteen months. The cohorts are organized around historic Christian practices, or what we call Rhythms of Life Together: Common Prayer, Sabbath, Justice, Education, Tarrying, Breaking Bread together, Pilgrimage, Retreat, and Confession. For us, these rhythms constitute the Spirit’s curriculum in Christ’s school of love.
Rhythms of Life Together:
Common Prayer
Sabbath
Justice
Education
Tarrying
Breaking Bread
Pilgrimage
Retreat
Confession
What is School of Love’s vision?
School of Love’s vision is to see deeper discipleship, more faithful and thriving congregations, and a more just city of Winston-Salem.
School of Love cohort participants have the option of constructing and committing to a Rhythm of Life upon the cohort’s end. In so doing, they become a part of what we envision as an Order of Love, which is simply a deliberate structure of support for our ongoing way of discipleship together.
This Order isn’t for us. The vision has always been that, emerging from our life together in Christ, we would imagine and live into alternative social structures in our time. We seek to work out this vision through local Experiments in Love—a phrase we get from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1958 article, “An Experiment in Love.” School of Love’s first experiment in love is Repair the Body Winston-Salem, a church-oriented effort of repentance, repair, and solidarity. More experiments are to come, for we long to see the cure of our souls and our systems—a love of God & neighbor that goes hand-in-hand!
