World Community for Christian Meditation

The World Community for Christian Meditation is an ecumenical spiritual community that took form in 1991. It continues the 30 year long work undertaken by the Benedictine monk John Main - teaching Christian meditation as a means of restoring the contemplative dimension of Christian faith to the life of the church and society in general.

The mission statement of the Community is: "To communicate and nurture meditation as passed on through the teaching of John Main in the Christian tradition, in the spirit of serving the unity of all." It is a kind of 'monastery without walls' which has as its spiritual foundation the local meditation group and the daily practise of meditation.

WCCM runs an annual John Main Seminar, held in a different venue and continent each year. It also produces a quarterly international newsletter and runs an International Centre and a retreat centre in London. WCCM supports a family of national centres and emerging communities in over a hundred countries around the world and its website (see below) provides a global forum for this expanding community.

WCCM is now directed by Laurence Freeman, a student of John Main and a Benedictine monk in the Olivetan tradition. He is based in a monastery at Cockfosters, London, but travels widely as an international speaker and retreat leader. As well as writing regularly for the Catholic weekly The Tablet and other magazines, Fr Laurence is the author of a number of books including The Selfless Self, Web of Silence and Jesus, The Teacher Within.

Fr Laurence is active in inter-religious dialogue and international peace initiatives. In 2007 he co-hosted a meeting at York University exploring the common ground between Christianity and Islam. Between 1998 and 2000 he took part in the historic ‘Way of Peace’ programme – a series of Christian-Buddhist dialogues with the Dalai Lama in India, Italy and Belfast. Fr Laurence’s work also involves encouraging the teaching of meditation to children and students.