Making lifetime commitments to vocational singleness & NFOB

After five years of intentional discernment, I am confident that God is calling me to permanently commit to vocational singleness and to the Nashville Family of Brothers. On Saturday, September 30th, I'm gonna make those commitments.

How seriously should you take this? As seriously as you would any Christian marriage!

There's gonna be save the dates, formal invitations, and a registry. Complete with a bachelor party, rehearsal, and rehearsal dinner. The ceremony will include my godson, multiple clergy, a brass quintet, and organ.

All followed by a cocktail hour, catered reception in a tastefully decorated banquet tent, a jazz band, cake, and toasts. Afterward, I'll celebrate with a pilgrimage to Max Thurian's grave in Taize, France as part of a month-long vacation in Europe.

Why?

I need to receive the full gift of grace from God to do vocational singleness well. I need that 100-fold provision of family in this life and the next that Jesus promised. I need to fully commit myself to the undivided attention that vocational singleness can offer my kingdom work.

I need to fully commit myself to this family of brothers. I need them to know that I will never leave them. I need my restless mind, heart, and feet to know where I'm staying, who I'm staying with, and what work that staying will empower.

And I'm committing publicly because God created me as an embodied person. So I need ceremony—I need an embodied moment—to not only convince my mind, but to reassure my body and soul that God is really doing something.

So what can you do?

Please pray for me and the Nashville Family of Brothers:

O Lord Jesus Christ, you became poor for our sake that we might be made rich through your poverty: Guide and sanctify we pray, those whom you call to follow you in vocational singleness, obedience to a shared life of brotherhood, and single-minded service to the poor and needy; that by their prayer and service they may enrich your Church, and by their life and worship may glorify your Name; for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In case you're curious, vocational singleness is a lifetime calling from God to give up romance, dating, marriage, sex, and biological children and to leverage one's availability to do kingdom work with undivided attention.

The Nashville Family of Brothers is an ecumenically Christian monastery for men called to vocational singleness and looking for a place to find permanent, lived-in family to sustain their kingdom work.

Read a one-pager about the Nashville Family of Brothers at www.pieterLvalk.com/aboutnfob