Practising the Presence of God: episode 5

In this episode, Dan Lee, Claire Dillamore and Robin Dillamore continue the conversation, which they began in episode 4, on Practising the Presence of God and how we can do this in practice.

In episode 5, we turn our attention to community: What does it means for us to practise the presence of God together in community? Most of our conversation so far has focused on us as individuals, and how we can each practise His presence in our personal lives. This also seems to be the focus of most of the books and articles we have considered. Now reflect on the fact that the Bible was written to God's people as a community and not just as a bunch of individuals, and we consider how our community life and our gatherings can be meaningful times of practising God's presence together.

This is the fifth in a series of episodes which are being released every two weeks through the final quarter of 2025.

What is Glory In The Mess?

Glory In The Mess is a podcast in which we share discoveries we have made in our journey together as an intentional Christian community with a focus on worship. The first series focuses on Practising the Presence of God, and we share our thoughts and experiences, as well as our reflections on writings by a variety of authors including Brother Lawrence, Henri Nouwen, Frank Laubach and Ronald Rolheiser. The Glory In The Mess podcast is hosted by the Presence House of Worship community. Dan Lee is asking the questions, and his conversation partners include Robin Dillamore, Helen Carr, Mirkku Ridanpaa and Claire Dillamore.

Dan: Welcome to the glory in the mess podcast. , today in the room, we have myself, Dan Robin Dillamore, and Claire Dillamore. We're going to be talking about practicing the presence of God in community, this is part two of a longer conversation. Thanks for joining us.

So earlier in our discussion in part one, we referenced the passage from Romans 12, which talks about us being a living sacrifice. And Hebrews chapter 13, versus 15 to 16. As she kind of builds on that. I'm just going to read it. Cause I feel like it really sets. That's the scene for this conversation.

So I'm going to just read the passage.

Through Jesus therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise. The fruit of lips that openly professors his name. And do not forget to do good [00:01:00] and to share with others for this such sacrifices god is pleased. It feels like loving others is a way of practicing God's presence.

Robin: I think that's a great point you've just made Dan, that it's a dying to yourself. Every time we decide to engage in community or engage in doing something with somebody else rather than just choose to do what I want to do, because we're stepping out of the place of, it's all about me and what I want, and we're stepping into a place of serving somebody else, helping somebody else, being with somebody else, doing what we're doing because we care about another person.

And there's two different ways we can do that. We can do it grudgingly and all the time be thinking, I don't want to be doing this. I would much rather just have a bit of time and space. There's all these things I want to do. I, focus on me, or we can do it as an act of [00:02:00] worship. And in the fullness of the spirit and know that he's really pleased that we're laying down our own agenda in order to, to love somebody else.

Well, and I, as I'm saying this, I'm thinking, Hmm,

how much have I been doing it with the wrong attitude and how much I want to get it right.

Claire: Yeah, I think, I think you've been doing it a lot of the time with the right attitude, my love. Just have a moment. Um, yeah, it's a really great question because it's something I am very passionate about is the whole concept of what it means to live. as the body of Christ, as community. Because whilst it is true that each of us as individuals is being transformed into his likeness, it's also true that us as the, as the body of Christ, as a group of people, as communities of people, whether that's local or more extended, are being [00:03:00] transformed into the likeness of Christ, because he's coming back for one bride, not several hundred thousand or even, even more than that.

And I think there are two ways of thinking about community, because with a very Western individualistic mindset, we can still think about community as a plurality of individuals. So, as Robin said right at the beginning of this conversation, the majority of the New Testament was written to communities of people.

And it's one of the The biggest limitations in my view of the English language that we only have one word for you, because whenever we read you in the New Testament, we're kind of culturally conditioned to read me or I, whereas the reality of it is, it's almost always a we or an us. And so therefore I cannot do a lot of what the Bible is [00:04:00] encouraging me to do without you guys and without other people. And the sooner I get my head around that and my heart around that and engage with what the Lord wants to do with us as we relate with one another, it's interesting that Jesus says that somebody asked him, what was the greatest commandment? And he said, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength, which Robin's quoted.

And the second part of it, and love your neighbor as yourself, or the second commandment is like it and that he elevated this need for us to love one another well, to our need to love God well. And so we, we are loving the Lord by loving one another, and we are being loved by him through the love we receive from one another.

And so I'm increasingly seeing these plural yous in the New Testament as seeing a, seeing a group that has a identity in its own right. It's not just a bunch of individuals, it's a thing.

Dan: [00:05:00] yeah when we've done community together, like Bible study or, uh, we're going through Sermon on the Mount at the moment, one of the things that keeps coming up is this was written to community. I've been reflecting on that a little bit.

So even as Christians, we can go to church, we can listen to a sermon, but we can kind of listen to the to the teaching through this kind of very individualistic lens. So even though we're in a congregation, let's say, it's almost like going to the cinema. We're having our own unique experience.

So I think that's one of the things I've really valued by being in this community is that reminder that. When the Lord speaks or when the Lord is revealing stuff through his word, it's to group

Claire: to mmmh

Dan: who have to kind of take it on board almost as a whole. Collectively.

Claire: And then be accountable to one another, in how well we're doing and living it out.

Robin: it And I think you're right, Dan. And I think that's probably most of [00:06:00] our experience and most of our listeners experience as Christians who've grown up in the West is our experience of church has been typically, certainly my experience was, I went along to a Sunday meeting I started when I was 14, when I became a Christian.

I would be with a bunch of Christians for maybe an hour and a half. A lot of that time would be sat in rows, listening to someone speak or sat in rows singing songs. We'd have a little bit of interaction with each other over tea and coffee at the end. In that church I first went to, we'd also break bread together every Sunday. ,

Even in the breaking of bread, it was each of us in silence contemplating what Jesus had done for us, which is precious and beautiful, but it wasn't a community activity in as much as we were each individually doing it,, not talking together or sharing our thoughts about it.

And then we'd go away from that hour and a half, being blessed to go and put everything we'd learned into practice and by and large, not see each other. For the [00:07:00] rest of the week, with the exception possibly of an hour on a midweek night where we'd get together for, for some kind of, kind of top up meeting.

Um, but by and large, we weren't doing life together. That's the point I'm making. And so we would be being given instructions to then each individually go away and put into practice in our own situations, not in a context where we were actually sharing life together. And therefore. could practically put it into life as a community, because we weren't living as a community.

In reality, we were just intersecting with each other once or twice a week at those moments of church meeting.

Claire: Yeah, and it's, it's, it's probably the, subject matter of a whole new podcast or series of podcasts, how we ended up doing what we're doing now, but it was, it was partly, a very positive experience. We had of a degree of Christian community in the university setting we were in that made us hungry for something else with a desire that we carried with us for 30 years that we're, we're now [00:08:00] really blessed to be experimenting with. But I just want to get back to the biblical basis of why this is so important.

You know, we've said several times now the whole of the New Testament is written to a community. In fact, the whole of the Bible is written to the community. The whole of the Old Testament is a narrative of God's dealings with, in, and through a community of people. , and there are individual stories that are highlighted in that, but those individuals are always living in the context of the people of God as a community.

But, It's like God himself is community. we can't get away from that. And if we are created in the image of God, then we are created with an inherent need to live in relationship, not just with God, but with one another. And even though the creation narrative in Genesis It emphasizes the fact that it's the couple, Adam and Eve, that were created , with need of one another. We could get sidetracked by that and [00:09:00] think it was all about marriage, which I do think marriage is an immense part of Christian community. But singleness is also something that we are celebrating within our community. And, and beginning to understand how we all relate, whatever stage of life we're in. I just feel understanding that, that God himself is community and being created in his likeness means that we, we must be communal beings.

And so everything God wants to do with us, however uncomfortable it is for us, is in the context of our relationships with other people, as well as with him. there's another John Mark Comer quote. It's on page 79. And it says that God wants to draw us, that's us plural, into his inner life to heal us by immersing us within the fold of his Trinitarian love. And I just think, I don't actually know whether the us in that. is intended to be [00:10:00] a plural us or one of those, like Dan was saying, a simultaneous individual experience of the same thing.

But I, I think it's better to read it as a plural. He wants to draw us plural into an experience of his p plurality

Dan: Wow

Claire: of love.

Robin: Yeah.

Dan: I think robin you've got a passage which might help us with that

Robin: Yeah. I mean, this is a verse, I don't think we've quoted before , in this series, but

Probably a great one, which ties in this idea of practicing the presence of God with community.

It's a passage that we know well, starts Ephesians 5:18, where Paul is exhorting the Ephesians not to get drunk with wine, but to be filled with the Spirit. We often stop there, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit, and be continually filled with the Spirit, is the sense of the Greek. But he goes on to expand on what it looks like to be continually filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms [00:11:00] and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ, and actually the whole of the rest of that chapter., and into chapter six, which talks about different aspects of Christian community, how a marriage should look like, parents and children and their relationship, employers and employees or masters and slaves. All of that is in the context of being filled with the spirit and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

And it's really, really that whole. section, which is pretty much a whole chapter from the middle of chapter five to the middle of chapter six could be seen as an unpacking of what it looks like to practice the presence of God as a community, um, that we are doing all of these things. And this sense of just singing, making melody, thankfulness, [00:12:00] praise, joy, worshiping God's presence, permeating the whole of our homes, the whole of our relationships, um, the whole of our community life.

Claire: what's fascinating about that passage, those few verses that you just quoted was that they, they did take place in the context of a home and not in the place of a, of a formal church gathering. So what would happen in the, Early Greco Roman world in the context that Paul was writing was that culturally getting together for a Mealtime with a fairly large group of people Was a normal thing and what they would do is they would eat and get hammered drunk And then at the end Not the christians.

This is not the christians not the christians This is the other people they would they would eat and get hammered drunk And then at the end of the meal, they would have this thing called a symposium where they would take it in turns , to sing, like to make up songs, to sing and to [00:13:00] teach one another about, you know, some new idea they'd got or some new thought , and so what Paul's describing is, Yes, that's a normal thing to be doing in your culture.

Let's do it filled with the spirit, but let's do it. But he's talking in the context of a home and he's talking in the context of a meal and he's talking in the context of gathering people together to enjoy life together. We don't need to get drunk to be able to do this. We can be filled with the spirit and the Holy Spirit can give us the things to sing or to say.

And when we often burst into song around our community.

It's rarely extemporary, um, you know, prophetic song. It's usually, you know, fairly tuneful renditions of, of things. We all know well that seem relevance at the time, but it's not that we don't do it. And it's, it's quite a lot of fun to be honest, when we do get into that space.

So I just, I just think it's a beautiful picture and it's something that goes way back beyond the acts and the. [00:14:00] The epistles as well because Jesus and his disciples lived like that around tables in homes doing life together

Robin: Yeah.

Dan: The other beautiful thing about that passage Just tying into what you just said claire's it's trinitarian.

You've got spirit you got christ son, you've got father Yeah, there's this very family feel Maybe that's the way that we perhaps need to be perceiving community more is we've been drawn into family into this way of practicing God's presence from the understanding of family.

Robin: Yeah. And I'm just thinking in my mind as Claire was talking that the only thing that's different between when Jesus was walking the earth and now is that Jesus was present in our lives. As a physically, visible man for those three years, now his presence is invisible. Whereas in the time when Jesus walked on earth, everyone will be in rapt attention, listening to the words that were falling from Jesus's mouth, because who wouldn't want to hear the words of God himself when he was in your [00:15:00] midst, but what we have the opportunity now is to hear the words of God coming from one another's mouths.

But it moves from around the table for different ones at different times, other ones who are bringing , into the gathering, what Jesus is saying in our midst.

Claire: I think going back to what you were saying, Dan, it's one of the things that we have loved exploring and it's not just not past tense, it's, it's present tense is, um, a different way of getting into the scriptures where we're expecting to hear the Holy Spirit speak through each of us.

Yeah, sometimes it can be one person in that particular week who really has a burden and revelation about what that passage means or what the Holy Spirit's highlighting through it to us as a community, but It's rarely somebody talks and then stops and we all go home because even if it's one person that's speaking for a period of time there's usually opportunity that we can unpack it and chat about it and practicalize it and then think what are we going to do about this thing and next week how are [00:16:00] we doing on this thing and in six weeks time how are we still doing on this thing we said we were going to do.

Robin: And it's not as if every word that is spoken has to be a word of Jesus, because it wouldn't have been like that when Jesus was here, the people were asking him questions, they were in discussion with him. But we have had a number of beautiful moments where we've been kind of puzzling over a question regarding something we've read in the Bible.

And between us, we suddenly discover we're getting a whole new golden thread of revelation. It's not that one person has the revelation, it's that between us, different people have different pieces and we're putting it together and think, oh wow, none of us would have ever got that on our own, but coming together, there's something beautiful that happens.

Claire: Yeah. And then that in itself becomes a means of practicing the presence of God, because then even when I'm just reading that scripture , I'm reading the scriptures differently now because I'm thinking not just how is this relevant for me, but how is this relevant for us? but then when you come back to those familiar versus we remember, okay, this is where we were [00:17:00] when the Lord showed us this and, yeah, and then we can start reminding one another about it. I just think it's a beautiful journey that I'm so grateful that we're on.

Robin: Yeah, me too.

Dan: So the other thing that's quite unique about the community we're in here is musical worship and worshipping together.

I know there's been a big journey of yours as a couple, but how do you kind of see that playing out in terms of practicing God's presence together?

Robin: It's a great question. I think we probably feel like we're just dipping our toe in the water, that we have this sense that musical worship, singing around the presence of God is so key to our experiencing of him together and of our acknowledging his presence appropriately, that what else can we do but worship when we realize that he is in the room and that he is in our midst. We've kind of all come together because everyone in our community has come from background where they've [00:18:00] really encountered God in the place of extended worship and therefore love the idea of a community where that is going to be a key practice. But in terms of working out what that looks like in our regular community rhythms, we have a lot to learn and are still just, trying different things out.

Claire: And theologically, it's something that I am fascinated by and gripped by because there is something that I think we look back three or four years for most of us that we really lost during the pandemic when we were not able to engage in gathered sung worship as much as we might have liked.

And. I think actually experiencing that loss has sharpened my thinking on why it's so important. It's actually brought me out of that season, even more passionate about the importance of worshipping together and using music. Because there's something so profound about making music.[00:19:00]

There's, a musicologist called Christopher Small, who coined the term music ing rather than making music to means of the activity of creating musical sound, whether that's with our voices or with our musical instruments, because it's a very embodied participatory activity and so, It brings us back around to this.

It's an incredibly important and profound way of practicing the presence of God in a way that takes us just beyond our minds, because we can't make music without using our bodies. What it says in Ephesians, and then it's a parallel passage in the book of Colossians. it's about singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

It's about engaging our spirit that we're singing with our spirit, as well as with our emotions, as well as with our physical bodies, our vocal chords that we're making music, making melody. [00:20:00] But again, we can read that passage and think, this is just about me learning how to play an instrument or singing more tunefully than I might have been able to a while ago, but it's not, it's about us.

And I think something even more profound about making musical sound together and worshipping in song together is the fact that you get one song and one sound arising out of many individuals and many bodies and many people's spirits and souls that it becomes a unified sound and, and that can be, forgive me, I just geek out for just a minute on this because I do it, but it's Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when he wrote, he wrote this, what's the book called?

Robin: Being Together.

Claire: Yeah, Life together. So it's the book that he wrote about his experiences of living in a community before the Second world War. And he was absolutely adamant that singing in [00:21:00] harmony was a no, no, that actually anybody trying to sing in harmony was kind of that wasn't unison.

It wasn't unity and that we all needed to sing the tune.

Robin: They were drawing attention to themselves in an inappropriate way.

Claire: And I remember reading that and thinking, Really? And then actually in his, I mean, it wasn't many years later, but during his experience of being in prison, and the letters that he wrote to friends and family members, he started to explore what it actually means about the harmony of God, the harmony of the Spirit. And I don't think you can read the one book without reading the other thing, because actually both are true that there's something beautiful when you hear a group of people all singing in unison together all choosing to stick to the tune but there's something equally beautiful when you have a room full of people singing in harmony or out of tune or shouting or just speaking or whispering or whatever that person's offering is but making [00:22:00] it in the presence of other people. It moves me to tears often just hearing somebody else's offering to him and hearing the sound, as it rises together to him.

And I think, how must the Father's heart be moved when we are prepared to get over our self consciousness and our vulnerability and our pride into a place of being willing to release whatever song and sound we can

Dan: wow

Claire: to bring this communal offering to him. I just love it.

Dan: Wow, that's a wonderful thought i'm just thinking of revelation there with every tribe and tongue like worshiping the Lamb it's like oh my word one day we'll get to experience that

So I'm wondering if we should end , but just with this kind of final thought we've talked a lot about community there and practicing God's presence in the midst of community and

I can imagine people listening to this be like that's what my heart is [00:23:00] aching for to be part of a community like that and I just wonder, could you speak to that?

Because I imagine you probably, met a lot of people in that position. How would you encourage people to kind of begin on that journey?

Robin: What I do believe is that If God is putting a hunger for community on your heart, then, the first response is to say yes, okay, yes God, whatever that looks like, I'm saying yes.

And I do believe that , we can purpose something in our heart and it'll start to happen. It says in Daniel chapter 1 that Daniel purposed in his heart that he wasn't going to eat the food of Nebuchadnezzar and he wasn't going to drink the wine of the king. Before he'd even had a conversation with the guy who was in charge of him, with his idea about how they would get around this, he purposed in his heart.

And, when I'm in agreement with God and I'm purposing something in my heart, that is really powerful. So I want to encourage people, don't think, I have no idea how I [00:24:00] can make this happen, so I'm not even going to bother trying. But rather think there's an invitation of the spirit.

I'm saying yes.

Without wanting to sound too poetic, we set our hearts on community, which is kind of what happened. We suddenly realized God was speaking to us a lot about community. , this was about eight or 10 years ago. And as we set our house community, it began to feel like expressions of community, even though just little snippets here and there. We began to feel like they were popping up all around us and we were starting to enjoy just a little bit here, a little bit there, , a taste of what community would feel like. And it was enough to keep encouraging us to pursue the journey. And I do believe God is good like that, that he, won't give us a burning desire and then not fulfill it.

Claire: Yeah, I think it's very easy for us and totally get this because we've been there to feel that you don't have something that you want and to be looking for where it is so that you can join it. But again, in our experience, when we've been [00:25:00] in that place where there's just a deep ache on the inside for something like that, it's often because it doesn't exist.

And I think the Holy Spirit is sharing some of his heart and his ache for what he wants to see us all living in. So I would say when Robin and I were in a fortunate position, eight, 10 years ago, when we started exploring different ways of doing life as Christians, because we're married, and there's two of us.

And so we were in a position where we, were, again, fortunate that we , came to a place of agreement with one another and what we felt the Lord was saying, and we think, well, we're just going to make this a thing then. And we just, decided this is what we were going to do. So we started worshiping together, breaking bread around our table, actually putting into practice the things that we saw being part of the future.

And it was probably several months down the line that one person said, can I come and join you guys? And. Our kind of mantra has [00:26:00] become, you can't wait until it's fully formed as a thing. You have to do it for it to be a thing if you want other people to come and join.

And I would say as well that what we are definitely not saying is that everybody, should jump ship from whatever expression of church they're in right now. You need to be exactly where the Lord is calling you to be doing what he's asking you to be doing. But if where you are, you're feeling there is not the fullness of the expression of community that you would like. Ask the Lord to highlight people to you that have got a similar desire in their heart, because we've got friends that are exploring doing something similar to us who are still, they're fully embedded in their local expression of, of church, which is a fairly normal and inverted commas evangelical charismatic church, , not everybody in their church wants to be exploring the things that they're doing, but there's enough of them that are, that they're doing some things in addition to what they would, they would find. If I cast my mind around the place enough, I think we could think of people [00:27:00] where they're even folk that are joining with others who are involved in different local churches who find commonality and what they're going after.

And it doesn't sit in competition with, what they're doing and the Holy Spirit's giving grace, the Lord's giving grace for lots of different journeys.

Dan: Yeah

Robin: Yeah.

Dan: Well, thank you so much guys. Thank you Claire for joining us on this podcast

Claire: That was fun.

Dan: Robin, what can we expect from future episodes?

Robin: Well, we probably are going to just have one more episode now where we want to circle back and have a look at some of Frank Laubach's specific pieces of advice for people in different walks of life and see what wisdom we can glean from that and how we can apply it in our daily life.

So still seeking to keep it practical, but we felt there was more to extract from Frank Laubach's book [00:28:00] than we have done yet. So that's the plan.

Dan: Wonderful. Well, we will be with you for another episode in this Practising the Presence series. Thanks guys. See you soon!