ABSTRACT
This first Account of Practice in the book presents the London Jesuit Volunteers (LJV) – a volunteering agency who gathered to practice Ignatian Spirituality in groups as a way of supporting volunteering in social agencies working with people on the margins of society. After an opening narrative describing the agency, its work and background and an account of the theological action research undertaken with ARCS, six ‘disclosures’ are identified and illustrated from the data gathered. These disclosures reflect the key learning points discerned in and between the reflector groups working in the research. The first, ‘effecting church as a lay-led agency’, highlights the significance of LJV as a lay movement before highlighting (disclosure 2) its indebtedness to the received traditions’ with which it worked. A third disclosure highlights what was learnt about community, whilst a fourth takes up the theme of guilt and structural sin. One of the most vividly reflective groups with which we worked, the LJVs commitment to Christian life ‘in the world’ is highlighted by the fifth and sixth disclosures identified: ‘encountering Christ at the margins’ and ‘faith formation in and for the ecclesia ad extra’.
