Tell me more about your neo-monastic community

Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My name is John S. Oliver. I am 64 years old and retired. I have been a committed Christian since the Lord redeemed my life at 23 years old.

Jesus Christ used a church based rehab community in Houston. Previously I abused alcohol and drugs.

I had lived in a New Age commune in Atlanta.

I have never been married nor had any children. But I have been engaged 3 times.

I made a deep commitment to follow Jesus Christ during my water baptism on January 30, 1977. I have been a zealot for the Lord ever since. Such commitment to eagerly follow all the promptings of the Holy Spirit and be a doer of the Word has made me to weirdo in the local churches where I have been a member in Houston and Dallas.

I have been in Dallas since 1985. I lived in East Dallas most of that time.

I have sought God earnestly to know and do His will these 4 decades. I have requested many people to pray for me.

I have prayed about that considered joining lots of missions agencies but that door never opened.

What I have received from the Lord in terms of guidance over and over again has been to apply the latest communication technologies that are being used by the business communities to reach out educationally to make disciples and equip leaders.

I have literally dozens of plans for systematic ways to harness the Internet for reaching and teaching both Christian and secular subjects.

I have been self taught on many techie skills. My current focus is to launch a ministry named Let’s Pray Better that will hopefully include short videos weekly with a practical application worksheet. That will gradually become an ebook and an ecourse. There will be an interactive online community about prayer.

I invest most of my waking hours at the downtown Dallas public library working on this and other projects. For example I preach on Saturdays at a small church for homeless people named Mercy House http://www.mercyhousedallas.org/ Today I am preparing another sermon about prayer that will become part of the ecourse someday.

I have been living at the Dallas Life Foundation homeless shelter https://www.dallaslife.org/ for more than 2 years. It is not pleasant, but it is tolerable.

I receive an income monthly from my social security retirement.

I have a section 8 housing voucher. I have been searching for months to find an apartment that will take this. But the best I have found were waiting lists of 6 months.

I learned about neo-monastic communities on Good Friday this year from a pastor. Before that I had said dozens of times that I would love to live in a monastery. All I want is a safe place to sleep and shower. I want lots of quiet time for online research and writing. I want to be free to pray and meditate often. I would be glad to help with the common chores and outreaches. I just want some simple healthy food.

After literally dozens of people have been praying hundreds of prayers for 10 months I have had zero options to accept or reject. So I speculate that God might be keeping those doors closed in order to open the door to a neo-monastic community.

I have lived in community before twice in my 20s and I miss it.

Please pray for me along this journey and reply to this message as the Holy Spirit prompts you.

Shalom

John S. Oliver