Ten years ago, JR and Amy Rozko planted a two-hundred-year-old congregation in Canton, Ohio, only to discover that what their city needed wasn't another program but a rule of life: a shared rhythm of prayer, rest, study, and work old enough to predate the church they'd inherited. Out of that conviction came Canton Abbey, a neutral space with no budget and no staff where churches and nonprofits collaborate freely, and later Common Life Church, a small congregation of about fifty people who've chosen to live under vows drawn from monastic tradition rather than membership on a roster.

JR and Amy join Dwight and Alicia to talk about what it costs, and what it gives back, to ask people to embrace a rule of life in a culture that treats the self as sovereign. They walk through the four rhythms and four commitments that shape their community, tell the story of a congregation that grew almost by accident out of people hungry for something thicker than what they'd found elsewhere, and offer honest counsel for pastors in inherited structures who sense that recovering old practices might matter more than adding new programs.

WhatsApp has been a big deal for us. It is like the thing that has taken us from a place of thinking about church as event to church as like a family. That we are communicating with one another ⁓ seven days a week ⁓ about things. And again, using the the sort of filter or the lenses of our shared way of life for the way in which we're engaging one another in the world.

Hello everyone, welcome to the Pivot Podcast, where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Alicia Granholm and I'm joined by my co-host Dwight Zscheile

And our guests today are J.R. and Amy Rozko co-founders of Canton Abbey in Canton, Ohio, and co pastors of Common Life Church. What they've built isn't a typical church plan. It started as a kind of missional experiment rooted in the ancient idea of an abbey, a place where contemplation and action, prayer and hospitality feed each other. Over several years, Canton Abbey has catalyzed a range of community work.

Easter parades involving dozens of congregations, countywide Christian community development, calling discernment workshops, and in fostering Common Life Church, a first catechism class, and most recently a baptismal service at a newly founded retreat center. J.R. and Amy have been thinking carefully about what it looks like to draw in the deep wells of Christian tradition in ways that actually form people in faith rather than just inform them about it.

JR and Amy, welcome to the Pivot Podcast.

Thanks, Dwight. Great to be with you guys.

We're so happy to have you and we would love if you could begin by telling us a bit about your context in Ohio. What are your roots there and what is the context like?

Yeah, I'm really the only one with roots here. I was born and raised in Northeast Ohio in this area and then went to college at Malone University, which is just behind me ⁓ from where we sit right now. ⁓ and was in ministry for a handful of years after that, after I graduated from Malone in 2001. and then was out of the area for 12 years.

⁓ so Fuller for grad school and then pastored on staff at a church in Memphis. Amy and I got to know one another through Fuller. ⁓ we weren't together at that point. ⁓ and it was she was in Chicago and I was in Memphis, and we connected and dated long distance and ⁓ got engaged and then started our married life together in Chicago. We were there for about eight years, and this summer ⁓ will be 10 years.

that we've been in Canton, which again is like home for me, but not for Amy.

So tell us, Amy, a bit about the story of Kenton Abbey and Common Life Church. Like what are they and how do they come about?

Yeah, that's a great question. It's it's hard sometimes to think back to when we first started ⁓ the Canton Abbey. ⁓ a lot of this came out of ⁓ thinking about some new things around the pandemic. And at that time, right, there was a lot of opportunity for innovation. And so we just were thinking, okay, what do we do now? Right, in ministry. What does it look like in our context? and so

JR really had this vision for ⁓ an abbey. And so that ⁓ kind of emerged. And then from that, Common Life Church has come, ⁓ which has been in its, I guess, current iteration for about three years now.

Yeah, at the time, ⁓ Amy and I were serving as co-lead pastors of First Church of the Resurrection, which ⁓ was the very first congregation established in our city. So Canton was founded in eighteen five, and this congregation was established in eighteen ten. ⁓ so we were functioning as co-lead pastors of almost exactly what you would expect, like an aging, dwindling.

is when ⁓ we established the Canton Abbey, which was meant to be ⁓ a way in for churches, nonprofits, other entities to connect and to collaborate and to do things with within the city. Little did we know the pandemic was right around the corner and it wound up being ⁓ really advantageous for us to have this other kind of space to do things out of in a more collaborative manner. ⁓ and then it was a handful of years later.

that what now is Common Life Church began to come together and it was was and is held by the Canton Abbey.

So you named what you founded in Abbey. And for most church leaders, that's maybe not the first word that's gonna come to mind when they think about fresh fresh expressions or church planting. So can you tell us some about what drew you to that language and what does it mean for how you relate to each other?

When I was a grad student at Fuller, was the first time I began to sort of get some exposure to ⁓ the history of like Celtic monasticism and the idea of religious orders and sort of sodalic structures to the church in general. ⁓ and the way that I was exposed to what abbeys were and how they functioned, ⁓ I just sort of had this sort of, you know, back of mind wondering if the reality and the trajectory of Western culture.

wasn't ⁓ ripe for the a reinvigoration of these kinds of structures of church. and so like that's where it came from and something that's like moldable, flexible, something that is ecclesial, but doesn't function the same way that a local church does and says, our job here is to try and discern what how we can be a blessing to the realities in which we

Find ourselves.

we talk about the Abbey being there to create an ecosystem of blessing in the community of Canton. And so, like JR said, when we founded it, we we really didn't know exactly what what the Abbey would do in some sense, right? We just knew we wanted to create the space ⁓ to just be available. And as it would turn out, there were the opportunities have just come ⁓ for us to use that to ⁓ create that ecosystem of blessing in our community. So it's been a great ⁓

a great holding place for some of that kind of work.

Well, so share some more about that because I think historically about abbeys, ⁓ going all the way back in the Middle Ages and things like that, there was, you know, a community that lived on site ⁓ under vows, right? Pr and you know, in permanent sort of life together, shared life together under a rule. ⁓ is that what you're doing or ⁓ what's similar or different? What what do you actually do in the in the Abbey in that sense?

Nope. It's not similar. I I mean, so I like just to say, ⁓ I the main driving force, I mean, behind besides sort of like tapping into the spirituality of Celtic monasticism and abbeys as ecclesial constructs, what our recognition was that there's something going on in our ⁓ the groundwater of the place in which we inhabit that makes it really difficult for collaboration to occur.

between churches and Christian organizations. And we've just watched when people of like gen I mean genuinely goodwill, who are lead pastors or like significant figures of Christian nonprofits try to do collaborative work. ⁓ there is this it gets sabotaged and short circuited that people just don't really trust, that there isn't some sort of other bottom line that at the end of the day someone has to look out for ⁓ in sponsoring collaborative efforts. And so

A big part of our setting forth of the Abbey with because it's not a physical space. ⁓ and the only at the outset, like it was just Amy and I. Now that community has grown a little bit, but it was really just Amy and I who we said, even though we're pastoring this historic congregation over here, we want to establish this other sort of thing over here that's not owned ⁓ by this church. It's it's its own thing. ⁓ that we

felt like we needed to create a truly neutral space if people were going to come together so that it was purely catalytic setting a table so that Abe doesn't have a budget and doesn't have a staff. And so it really has no bottom line it has to look out for. So it has yeah all the freedom in the world to sort of create these common tables and spin work out amongst people that want to sort of work together.

how we're thinking about the ongoing ministry of the Canon Abbey, but it's really kind of like a tool that we pick up and use as we need it, as opposed to it's not our livelihood. ⁓ it's a space and an identity ⁓ that we use within the city as God gives us opportunity to.

So ⁓ tell us a bit about Common Life Church then and how it relates to to this ⁓ canton Abbey ministry.

Yeah, so just a little bit about Common Life Church. ⁓ we we do gather as a community under a shared rule of life. So that is a distinctive of our church is that we share a rule of life together. our gatherings are on Sunday evenings. we gather ⁓ Sunday nights around a shared meal, ⁓ and then ⁓ gather together either around ⁓

a worship night or we are if we study a particular book of the bible or are going through you know lessons on some particular topic, ⁓ different kinds of things that we'll decide to do. But typically the kind of ⁓ work that we're doing is around tables and conversation, dialogue, that kind of thing. ⁓ but but in a small community of folks, so like I guess 30 to 50 some ⁓ adults and kids together.

trying to discern what does it look like to live in the kingdom of God, right under the reign of the kingdom in our everyday lives. So it's not just that gathering Sunday, but ⁓ there's practical ways we try to stay involved in each other's lives during the during the week, and ways of serving one another and ⁓ serving the needs of our community as well.

Amy, so you serve as pastor of faith formation. And when you're thinking about what it actually takes to form someone in faith over time, what do you find yourself coming back to and what can't be shortcut? Yeah.

Yeah,

great question. ⁓ my my best answer is to say I find myself coming back to the Holy Spirit. ⁓ and just realizing, man, there's there's just no shortcuts to formation and change. I got to be on a a panel over at Malone. ⁓ they were interviewing me about like, you know, how do you, you know, get quickly like get people to change their worldview. And I'm like, well, if you know, tell me. ⁓ because it just is not an easy or quick process. And I mean

Fool's errand apart from the Holy Spirit, right? So we try to just create the space for the spirit to invite people. part of, you know, living under a shared rule of life, right? With common practices, is meant to form people. We, we have a lot of families with children. And so often, you know, faith formation of children also, you know, forms the adults in that household as well. And so try to create resources for families to ⁓

create, you know, spaces in their homes ⁓ that are formative again for the whole family. so those are some of the the tools that we try to leverage. But ⁓ yeah, ultimately I think just recognizing that patience is important in this kind of work, that it's a slow work. ⁓ and we're really working to stay in step with the Holy Spirit as we connect people. I mean, I know that's in my life that the that that's how it's worked. and so

A big part of that I think for us too is just modeling, right, and practicing these ancient practices ourselves and inviting people to come alongside us ⁓ on our journey.

So I'm really curious about the r this whole concept of kind of embracing a rule of life, particularly in today's America as Protestants. ⁓ and it seems like this is a moment when a lot of people are on the one hand yearning for deeper roots, for a deeper sense of a shape of life that is ⁓ informed by ancient wisdom, which I hear in part of your story, but it's also a culture that is always saying.

Do what you want. The self is sovereign. Don't be ruled by anything other than what you your own desires, right? So, so to to have a community where people voluntarily embrace a shared rule of life is is super countercultural, right? And so what are you learning about that? That tension, if it if you're experiencing it, are people finding it to be just sort of a relief to say, I don't need to make it all up on my own? I I can find ⁓

you know, the wisdom of a shared way of life in a community? Are people, you know, pushing that back against it? Like what does that look like?

well, there is this interesting dynamic in Common Life Church. We didn't try to start it. there were a handful of other people who approached us in the summer of 2021 who had gone through ⁓ some deconstruction, had gotten disconnected from church in the midst of COVID, ⁓ or and others who were just kind of on the fringes of like maybe one foot out the door of being a part of church at all. ⁓

And so we had the benefit of just responding to what seemed like people were actually really hungry for, which was a thicker sense of spirituality and community. ⁓ so we haven't really had to sort of like force that on people or convince people of it. ⁓ we don't do anything public, at least we haven't up until this point. And so

We are a community of about 50 people between adults and kids. And everyone that's come has come by virtue of an invitation from someone else in our community who's just trying to say, here's who we are and here's what we're doing. and so the people who are finding who are coming, ⁓ some who are baby Christians, some actually who are not Christians at all, others maybe who have been around the church for a bit, ⁓ but they're kind of like like done with church or like church is normal.

And they are looking for something more substantive that actually does bleed into ⁓ the totality of their lives. ⁓ now that sounds a little utopian, I think, when I say it. ⁓ like, so then there's also the reality of like, yes, people are sort of expressing a desire for a thicker way ⁓ of community and spirituality. But then the rubber meets the road of the way of life, and so like.

We yes. So the answer to part of that question is when it comes to the realities of what it means to inhabit a shared way of life, for sure. Like we're bumping up against things because consumerism is just so built into us as Americans. ⁓ and and yeah, so I mean it's still very, I feel like very experimental in that regard.

Let me just do a quick follow up on that. So just give us give our listeners ⁓ and viewers just a sketch of what is the what's involved in the rule of life. Like, you know, what what are the vows that people take or the practices that they commit to and things like that.

Yeah. ⁓ so this is also like directly sourced from our connection to the order of the common life. ⁓ and so we talk about four rhythms of prayer, rest, study, and work, and then four core commitments, the cultivation of spiritual friendships, the practice of hospitality, ⁓ the sharing of faults and affirmations, and the pursuit of formational healing. So

These four rhythms, these four commitments, we ground those in the great in Jesus' talking about the great commandment to love God with all of your heart, soul, might, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. And so we're saying this is the concrete way in which we're trying to respond to God's to Jesus' call and invitation to us to learn how to love God and love others is by giving ourselves over ⁓ to this shared way of life.

And so ⁓ I don't know that we mentioned it here. Amy Amy and I happen to be Anglican priests, though Common Life Church doesn't necessarily itself inhabit an Anglican identity. but our bishop, our ⁓ founding bishop Todd Hunter, ⁓ would always say, we engineer the church from the mission field back, which is kind of a weird thing for an Anglican bishop to say. ⁓ but like that's just how he lived and thought. And so

what we're doing is beginning with our community and the realities of their lives. And we're sort of engineering all that back into the realities of this shared way of life and then architecting our the way in which we're coming together with one another, both on Sunday evenings and throughout the week, by keeping those those rhythms and commitments front and center. So they are the things that are actually shaping the way in which we're spending time together.

the practices that we're engaging in ⁓ and things like that. So that's not like a mission statement back up on the wall somewhere. ⁓ it's actually the filter through which we are creating what we do together as a community. And I'll just say ⁓ this is feels so weird to say, but like WhatsApp has been a big deal for us. It is like the thing that has taken us from a place of thinking about church as event.

to church as like a family, that we are communicating with one another ⁓ seven days a week ⁓ about things. And again, using the the sort of filter or the lenses of our shared way of life for the way in which we're engaging one another in the world.

Maybe this next question kind of goes into this a little bit more deeper, JR. But so you've described Common Life Church as something of an accidental church plant that grew out of Counton Abbey's Canton Abbey's broader missional work. What is that what has that maybe said to you about the relationship between forming people in faith and cultivating a church community? Does one come before the other? It feels like a little bit of a like is a chicken and an egg, you know.

thought and I'm curious what your experience has taught you about that.

Yeah, I'll I'll just say something really quickly to that and then would love to hear what Amy has to say about that as well. And just say, I mean, this is a first for me. Like there, I mean, again, it wasn't planned, and we've not done anything like this before, with the Abbey coming first, and then ⁓ just sort of relationships emerging around that, and then watching something grow up from the ground ⁓ and come into existence that was sort of grafted then into the life of the Abbey. And so

⁓ it feels a lot more like a lot less like Amy and I trying to produce something that existed previously in our minds and more like, this beautiful plant just sprung up from the ground and it feels like it's ours to tend to. And I don't mean that exclusively ours. Like we're part of a leadership team and everyone sort of in our community is sort of engaged in that work. ⁓ so back to what Amy said about like being tenant

like attending to the Holy Spirit and like sort of what's just coming is is that sort of posture. And I would say it's really different than like trying to architect something out and bring it into existence. I mentioned that we don't do anything public. Also, this is not a source of like like significant income for Amy and I. And so it's also our first time of like

tending to the existence of a church community where we're not sort of counting on it for our livelihood. And that also has changed a lot of the dynamic about like how it functions.

Amy, what would you add? And I'm curious as you think about ⁓ you know, the kind of ⁓ you know, part of the backdrop for me is also this interesting Celtic spirituality that shapes the life that you all have, a common life, which Celtic spirituality both has this sense of historically of like a being rooted in a place, which is very much what you're doing there, but also an apostolic, you know, the Celtic missionaries getting in their boats and

evangelizing northern Europe and things like that. So t talk a bit about the kind of missional dynamics there too.

That's a great question. ⁓ so I think as, you know, the earlier question about, you know, patience, right? And this idea of how long things take. We have been ⁓ just trying to discern, ⁓ hey, who, who's here, right? Who's God bringing into the room? Where are they at? ⁓ what are they ready for? And and then what's next? ⁓ this has not been something we stepped into with a big long term plan. I think our ⁓

our hearts are for our city and our community. And I see that in the people we have as well. ⁓ but it's also been kind of a long discernment in terms of what does that look like? ⁓ what does that look like to not just as individuals maybe doing ⁓ disparate kind of missional work and building relationships, but what does it look like for us to maybe corporately ⁓ do that in a different kind of way? And so ⁓

Yeah. So of course we've been equipping and blessing people to, you know, engage relationally, right, with ⁓ non-believing friends and family and prayerfully supporting them and sometimes doing service projects in our community and whatnot. But also I think we're still in that discernment phase of like, okay, is there something else that God has for us that we would maybe more wrap our arms around together in a in a community? We do have

A lot of our folks do live fairly close to one another. There's a couple different pockets of people in neighborhoods that are five to ten ish, you know, minutes at least by car. And so, ⁓ yeah, so wondering is there like an even tighter geography that God wants us to focus on or ⁓ another part of the community? But I'd say some of that we're still discerning and and seeing, you know, where where's God leading us in this time?

Jar, you've written and spoken about soulful discourse, the idea that communication is never just data transfer, that it always involves one soul connecting with another. How does that shape how you preach or teach or think about what happens as part of worship?

Yeah, so to reference again like the charism of the Order of the Common Life that we've grafted into our community, Common Life Church, is this idea of ⁓ learning how to notice and nurture the love of God at work in us and around us. And so when I ⁓ talk about soulful discourse, I sort of mean like shifting the a person of

like your focus comes off of content and like onto a person. ⁓ and that your

Trying to respond not not by getting your own idea across, but by like making a connection to the people who are right in front of you. ⁓ and so preaching isn't something we do every Sunday. We do it with a fair amount of regularity, but like if and when I'm preaching or Amy's preaching or someone else's preaching, ⁓ yeah, that idea of soulful discourse ⁓ means that like

What we're saying and how we're thinking is very, very rooted to the realities of the lives and circumstances of the people in our community. And so the it's like, yeah, of course, we want to do good, faithful exegesis on texts and things like that. ⁓ but it's not sort of like a didactic kind of thing where we're trying to get people aligned. Like here's I mean, another way of saying it is like sort of our experiments.

In being at this expression of church, is can we create a Christian community that's not predicated on everyone believes exactly the same thing? Which doesn't mean doctrine isn't important to us. It is. Amy and I are Anglican priests and operate under the authority of our bishop, and there's a tradition in which we're operating and all that kind of stuff. But we're just saying we're cultivating the life of a community as a family.

And everyone's sort of on a spiritual journey of learning. And the more important thing is the growth of one's soul along the way, as opposed to creating really fixed boundaries of in and out. So I mean that's a little bit of like centered set, bounded set kind of stuff for that. ⁓ but also just to sum up, I like when I say soulful discourse.

It's really this posturing towards other people, wondering what is the state of this other person's soul and their capacity to receive and respond ⁓ to what's being presented.

I'll just add that that it's a very unique situation in that when we're when we are preaching, JR said that's not every week, we know exactly who's in the room and we know what they're going through in their lives. And so we don't have to preach with a ⁓ generic ⁓ you know, covering to say, well, in case anyone's there that it's their first time or I don't know them, but we just we just know who's gonna be there. So yeah, as JR was talking, you know, I'm preparing to preach this next Sunday and it's equal parts.

I think praying over the text, but also praying over our community and saying, okay, what is ⁓ how does this gonna relate to what I know people are going through and ⁓ yeah, asking God, is there something that's like he's he's connecting there? So it's a ⁓ yeah, it's a it's a different, it's different than other, I guess, context where I've preached before where it you don't always you just have to be aware that you don't know who's in the room, right?

So I love the freedom that you have in creating this community to keep it s what I hear is is something very simple and very focused. institutionally seems pretty light. You're not creating lots of committees and infrastructure and all of those things, right? That so many inherited churches then get bogged down in. ⁓ and

And it's very focused and trying to figure out how to actually be commute Christian community together in daily life and rhythms that are steeped in ancient wisdom. And I think some many of us will look at a lot of inherited churches and say, gosh, somehow along the way we got so distracted from those basic things. And we somehow need to recover them today. So I'm curious for ⁓ what would be your words of counsel to leaders?

Who are working in inherited structures, inherited congregations, who maybe have accreted over the years many different things they're focused on that may not all kind of have that sense of shared life together in the way that you're describing? What would be some encouragement you would give if for pastors or leaders who want to maybe add some practices or simplify or kind of focus their church's life so as to?

foster a c very formational, shared, intentional way of following Jesus.

My first thought is that it this may not be something everyone wants, right? Or is ready for or open to. And so ⁓ it's not something I think that you can force on a congregation, but it's it's meant to be a beautiful invitational kind of way of being. And so ⁓ that my my initial thought would be like, hey, don't try to like

impose this in a space that isn't ready for it or isn't hungry for it. But also don't be surprised that there may be some hunger ⁓ for these kind of spaces that you don't know is there. And so what are some creative ways to ⁓ in invite and find those those people, those core people that may be looking for this kind of challenge into a different kind of way of life.

Yeah, so I'll I'll piggyback on that and say, and I think you can do that inside of what you have, like little small experiments and places of trying things inside, or the way that we did, creating auxiliary spaces like the Can Nabbey. ⁓ and saying, like, we need a different kind of playground to like try some things, depending on, you know, all the sort of things that you have to contend with when this in this other reality. and then I would say, and I think Amy sort of like was alluding to this.

is to say, like, we also can't confuse these things. So here's like the truth about our tending to Common Life Church is like we have no idea if this thing can exist for 50 years. I mean, the way it's it can't right now. There's no thought to that. And so institutional preservation is a different ministry than what we're doing. And it's that's a good ministry. But like you can't

You can't function as a leader in a space that's about institutional preservation and try to do fresh expressions of ministry. Like the two things are not the same. So that's what I mean by creating like alternative space that like this doesn't need to be a part of like the institution that we're trying to preserve. ⁓ so I'm just trying to say like these are two different things. They both have upsides and downsides.

Like ⁓ we are not building something right now that we're certain can stand the test of time and generations. ⁓ and for those who are leading in prevailing model churches, institutional kinds of contexts, I think grassroots experiments creating alternative kind of space is kind of the best that you can do, but like to not try to treat that other.

space of ministry, ⁓ as to pretend it can try to be this thing over here.

So say a pastor or a layleader would like to take, you know, a first step in trying an experiment on the side. ⁓ what would you suggest? Where would you suggest they start?

Yeah, I mean, I really I I mean, I think the right answer is prayer, ⁓ but to be not quite so pietistic about it. ⁓ like really listening, both to the spirit, ⁓ and and to the people that you would hope to see God's love move amongst. ⁓ I mean, I fall prey to this as much as anyone else of like, I have really good ideas.

Like I I I think I should just go out and get after my good ideas. And certainly everyone else is gonna want to respond to like my really good ideas. ⁓ and I think the gift that God has given me in Common Life Church is like nothing about this has really been my idea. It's really just been respond like coming alongside other people, listening to them well, and then sort of like responding to what.

where understanding other people are where they're at, what they're looking for. ⁓ and now, you know, we're still trying to be true to ourselves, right? Who we are and like God's calling on our lives and things like that. But I would say listening and responding and then experimenting your way into the future.

We had a good we were established in our community for a long time before we started this. And I think ⁓ doing that good kind of community exegesis of knowing who who's in my community who's not in the church, right? And why not? And what are they looking for? ⁓ and what what would make what would be a safe place for them to encounter Jesus? and that's gonna look different depending on who you're hoping to reach. So so

thinking about those kinds of things and, you know, how do I ⁓ and then how do I create that kind of safe place ⁓ to engage that community and and how do I have support around it.

Well, Amy and JR, thank you so much for sharing your story and your wisdom with us, both reaching deep into ⁓ ancient practices and traditions of the Christian church and models for thinking about ministry, but also doing that in a very contemporary and experimental way. And I think this is a moment when I think the church needs to do both of that, both that retrieving of roots but and gifts from the tradition, but also finding new ways to express them. So thanks for being with us.

And to our audience, thank you for joining us on this episode of Pivot. To help spread the word about Pivot, please like and subscribe if you're catching us on YouTube, leave a review on your podcast platform, or share Pivot with a friend. We'll see you next week.

Pivot Podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith Lead. FaithLead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at faithlead.org.