A retreat in January 1987, and what grew from it

Beginnings at Ngadireso

In early 1987 a group of lay people gathered for a retreat led by Fr. Yohanes Indrakusuma, O.Carm, at Ngadireso, a village on the slopes of Mount Semeru in the district of Tumpang, Malang. The retreat ended with a simple wish: that the experience of God’s love they had received there would not stop when they returned home.

From that wish came small groups meeting regularly to pray, to receive teaching and to accompany one another. Those small groups became the cells, and the structure has not changed since. KTM remains a community that lives in living rooms and parish halls, not in a head office.

The founder

Fr. Yohanes Indrakusuma, O.Carm is the Carmelite priest who founded KTM. He also founded Putri Karmel, the congregation of Carmelite sisters, and the Carmelitae Sancti Eliae (CSE), the order of priests and brothers named after the prophet Elijah. All three grew from one ministry: bringing the inherited prayer of Carmel together with renewal in the Holy Spirit.

His teaching remains the community’s principal formation material. Most of it is available as text and recordings, and can be read on the writings page.

Canonical status

KTM is wholly a lay community. Its members live within their families, their work and their own parishes. Priests, brothers and sisters are received as special members, but this does not alter the lay character of the community.

Canonically KTM is a fraternity under canons 298–299 of the Code of Canon Law: an association of the Christian faithful working together to foster spiritual life and apostolate in the world.

Vision and mission

The vision holds three steps in order: to experience for oneself, to live it unto a union of love, and to bring others to the same experience. The mission follows the same order — the formation of members first, and only then ministry outward. Its scriptural ground is Mark 12:30, and its pattern of common life is drawn from the early Church in Acts 2:41-47.

Growth to the present

From one retreat in Malang, KTM cells now gather in nine countries. That growth has come almost entirely through members moving, through personal invitation, and through retreats — not through campaigns. When a cell grows beyond sixteen people it divides in two, and that is how the community increases.