I spent part of my birthday this year in an incredibly humbling and inspiring place- in the midst of the trees picture above.

Craning my neck to see what impressive features were hidden in the heights of these giants, I though about how much different they were then the massive structures we humans build. These monuments are alive and they have been for a very very long time. Somewhere about when David was anointed king of Israel, the oldest still-living Sequioa was spreading its first leaves, binding its roots together, digging them into the ground, and growing. Say what you will about my masculinity, but as I sat alone in the midst of this grove of ancient life, I found myself impressed almost to the point of tears.

Strangely, I also found within me a longing that felt a lot like jealousy. I mean, if this type of life is possible, I want it too. And I don’t just covet it because I want to be really tall and very old. I long for it because there is a quality and a strength and a slow valuable endurance represented in those tall trunks. There is deep life and sometimes I feel like my pool is so shallow.

But isn’t it true that the God who crafted those mighty eldrich forests has chosen to live inside of me in a way He does not inhabit any other creature? Perhaps if I could figure out how to truly wrap my soul around that, these trees would envy me.

On second thought, I imagine they would be even more content.

In addition, it appears that I seem to get distracted easily when online. Case and point, 25 minutes elapsed between in the space between the end of the last paragraph and the beginning of this one.

Any suggestions on how I can get better at this?

But that struggle has made us think, particularly about how we live our lives and spend ourselves when things are more “normal.” We are becoming more aware of the fact that there is something about the way our “modern” lives are structured that makes it very easy to not pay attention to what we are doing and why we are doing it.

In regards to the internet, I have found that the earlier I sit down in front of a computer on any particular day has a direct correlation to the amount of time I waste in that day. And the thing about it is, I usually don’t even know why I visit the specific sites that I do. I don’t ever bother to stop myself and ask, “why am I here?” or “what is this accomplishing?”

Sometimes the answer to these questions has to do with how my brain is being affected, sometimes it is about how the resource of my time is being spent, sometimes it is about what companies I am supporting.

I am increasingly convinced that we need to ask ourselves these questions to discover what lay below not only the action of “surfing the internet,” but also buying new clothes or buying a lot of electrical power from a company. Why am I doing this? What is it accomplishing? How are the companies I am giving my resources to using those resources? Are they taking advantage of people and using sweatshops? Are they burning tremendous amounts of coal? Are they putting smaller, more local shops out of business? Are they using natural resources to make a bunch of stuff that doesn’t really benefit the world at all? Are the donating huge sums to pass pet legislation that I cannot support?

Are we willing to ask these questions? Are we willing to deal with the answers?

Right now, Morning Church is unaffected by this situation due its size. Because of that fact, I highly encourage you to please only attend whatever church gathering you currently go to. If a bunch of us started showing up at Morning Church during this time, it would force them to have to move as well.

Thanks for your understanding, your prayers, and your help in spreading the word.

Of course the other defining factor in all of these cases in common purpose–protection, survival, success, or victory. Now, I am not going to go so far as to say that every community has to have a common purpose in order to be a “real” community. However, I will most certainly affirm that having a shared purpose draws people closer together.

When I working at Likhaya Lemphilo Lensha in Swaziland, Africa, at the end of each day, my housemates and I would cook a meal for ourselves together. Because of our location (far from any grocery store) we ended up doing a lot of our meal-making from scratch. It took hours… every night, literally hours. Other then working, sleeping, and about 90 minutes or so of free time, it was pretty much all we did. Not this may sound tedious and boring to some people but, to me, it was beautiful.

You see, instead of spending our free time simply consuming or paying to be entertained, we created something together. It may have been only food but, then again, what physical thing is really more valuable then that basic need of life? And as we created, we shared life together. We talked, we laughed, we ran out to the garden, we drank tea, we sorted eggs, and we pursued a basic common goal. Working side by side, we grew closer together. We knew each other better. We appreciated each other more. We depended on each other to a greater extent. We were a community.

It seems to me, that on some level, this is the key. As Liann and I travel around the country, keeping our eyes open is a big part of what we try to do. The question we are regularly asking is, “What can we do to help?” It’s kind of a general query but I think that is actually a good thing because it frees us up to do whatever most needs to be done. Sometimes we redecorate churches and defrost their refrigerators, sometimes we ask a bunch of questions and offer suggestions, sometimes we lead small groups and teach, and sometimes we cook meals and fix bicycles. Where we are right now, we are helping Findlay Turning Point figure out how to reach out to people in the apartment complex and trailer park near their church. As we are here, we are also working on getting a tow bar on our bus so that, when we hit the road again, we can haul people who are broken down to the nearest service station and save them the cost of the tow truck.

Now obviously, we can’t help every single person in every possible way but we are trying to keep our eyes open to use the resources we have to help whoever we can.

While I cannot speak to all types of community, I believe this attitude to be crucial to genuine Christian community. A willingness to proactively look for ways to bless the people around in the name of God is central. Sometimes this means housemates, sometimes it means neighbors, sometimes it means everyone you see. In fact, the (almost too obvious) working definition we are using for community– “common unity” requires that those of us trying to live in such a manner to at least look for ways to serve the others who are in it with us.

While we were in Minneapolis I started reading a book from a guy name Dave Andrews called Not Religion, But Love.  I didn’t get to finish it but I am planning to track it down soon in order to do so.  In the mean time I’ve been trying to find articles of his to read up on, so far this one: reweaving has been my favorite.  I know it’s a few pages, but I would encourage each of you to read it as I feel it shares some really important information.  Aside from geeking out about some of the works Andrews’ sites in his article (some of my favorite books from college) what seems so significant to me about this article is that it explains many of the qualities seen in connected communities–community networks are shown to positively affect our safety, health, generosity, honesty, equality and even our happiness.  When people have strong community networks they are less like to cheat on taxes and insurance claims and more likely to stop people who are inflicting violence in their neighborhood…. so if community is so good for us, why do we keep moving further and further away from it?

I think it’s because Satan is working to isolate us.  If we look at the trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are connected, they are one.  They are an intricate web of togetherness and I think we are made to reflect that; we are made to be in relationship.  So the dark forces of this world work against that, they make us feel isolated, alone, and disconnected.  We have no desire to reach out because we are taught to be scared of our neighbors and are convinced that even if our neighbors aren’t evil or weird they probably won’t like us anyway.  So we don’t.  We stay inside and, if we do dare to make friends, we keep relationships superficial.

Andrews’ article mentioned that community networks effect generosity–often people who have received help are more willing to give it.  This reminds me of a story my friend Cheri told me.  She was at a Chipotle once, talking to the guy in line behind her.  While I’m not sure how it came up she mentioned to him that whenever she goes to the grocery store she wishes she could pick a person in line and pay for their entire basket of groceries, noting how excited she would be about getting to do that.  He laughed a bit and said he didn’t get it.  Their conversation moved on as did the line, they got their food and went their separate ways.  As she was eating in the restaurant, Cheri felt like God told her to buy him a gift certificate to Chipotle, so she did.  She told me that when she handed it to him his face turned red, he broke out into the biggest smile and gave her a huge hug.  While she couldn’t be sure of it, Cheri doubted that he had ever gotten to receive random generosity, or possibly even generosity when he needed it.

I think this is how the Holy Spirit moves.  God wants to interrupt the patterns of our lives and culture because our culture is not His.  When we are disengaged we cannot experience the relationships that will show us the character of God, which is great for Satan but bad for our souls.  I want to encourage each of us to look for the ways that God is calling us love our neighbors as well as gain a better understanding of how we are disconnected.  I think articles like this one help us gain broader insight to the problems we are facing and when we know more about what’s going wrong we can be more conscious of  how to change it.  Ask God to show you how to overcome our cultures lack of community.

[Note: Joshua will share the promised story on intention soon!]

Lately, both with people from The Salvage Yard and friends across the country, the topic of hurt keeps coming up.  People are hurt by friends, family, the church, disappointment in life and on and on.  We have a lot to be hurt about, we live in a fallen world and most people aren’t natural communicators.  The response to hurt is what, I think, kills us.  So often an issue grows and gets out of control until people stop dealing with it.  And then there is distrust and, out of distrust, isolation.

Most of us didn’t spend our childhood learning how to embrace who we are and share ourselves vulnerably with the world around us.  In fact, for the most part, we learned that we are weird or difficult or that things about us are weird or difficult so we should keep them to ourselves (even with the most noble parents this is what we often hear from the world).  When we take this base and add to it years of unresolved, unhealthy conflict it is no wonder we struggle with being close to one another.  And no wonder that, because connecting with others has become so difficult, so many people feel alone.

With this being said, it seems obvious why so many kinds of community fail.  People get tired of trying to work things out and sorting through the crap of our lives and give up.  It is easier to be distant from others, even if it is lonely.  But the question I feel Christ calls us to ask is, is it better?  In John 17:22-23 Jesus is praying for all believers and he says, “ I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”.  I think it’s pretty clear that Christ wants us to be in relationship, in unity, with one another.

This doesn’t necessarily mean packing people into a house (though that can help) but it does mean committing to bear each other’s burdens and choosing to reconcile differences as much as possible.  While this is hard, I think it is made more possible when we remember why.  Christ isn’t saying “live as one because it’s good for you or will teach you nice things about yourself” but he says this because he wants our lives to reflect his relationship with God.  He wants our lives to reflect his relationship to the father so that the world will know that God sent Christ and loves them (us).  The Bible is full of examples of God giving people a physical portrayal of the message He is trying to convey (my favorite is Ezekiel 4 where God tells the prophet Ezekiel to lay siege to a clay tablet in his front yard… this goes on for a few years as a warning to the people of Israel.  I can only imagine what his wife was thinking as he was banging around the front yard fighting a clay tablet with her frying pan).

God is still using these sorts of enactments to speak to His people—but now He wants to do this through us.  When we live in (common) unity, despite all the odds and obstacles, we demonstrate the power of God.  We become the display that can speak like the prophets spoke.  How exciting is this?  And, like crazy Ezekiel, how hard?  But God gives us strength when we choose to rely on Him.  I can’t live in unity at all on my own power, but when I ask God to help me love people through His overflow it becomes possible.  As we mature and grow we become more capable of allowing God to deal with our hurt and, hopefully, we can aid in others doing the same, glorifying our Lord and showing our world the saving love of Jesus Christ.

Now, since these ministry houses are places where people live together, I would say that they are simply communities that have organized themselves around a particular shared purpose. Using their combined resources, passion, energy, and time, they are trying to change their worlds together.

But where does that leave these other community houses? If they are not organized around a very specific purpose, what is it that they do that sets them apart from any other living situation? Is holding a church service once a week sufficient? Should they be doing something else as well?  Should every member of that house sign some sort rule of living or involvement? Do they need to share their finances or other resources (food, clothes, vehicles, toothbrushes)? Do they need to eat together regularly?

In the comments section of the the first post in this series, we seemed to come to an understanding that the key element of living in community is intention. While this can also be a nebulous term, I think that our travels themselves have shed some light on what it means. This, I shall explain more fully in the next post.

In the meantime, I would love to hear any thoughts you might have on which of the above-mentioned things are necessary or even just really valuable for genuine communal living.

I personally have never lived “in community,” as far as I understand the term. Then again, I’m not entirely sure that I do understand it. It seems so uncertain and nebulous at times. Does growing up in a family count? On some level, I suppose it must. What about living with roommates–does that make the cut? Having a multiple day Kool-aid fueled sleepover? How about living in a church? I have done all of these things and still don’t feel quite as if I have tamed the mythical beast known as living in community.

What about you? Do you think you have been a part of communal living at some point in your life? Why do you believe this to be the case; what makes your experience any different than any “normal” living?

Right now Liann and I are parked across the alley from The Salvage Yard in Minneapolis, MN. There are about a dozen community houses associated with their church. We are trying to learn about this topic from them and also from our visits to Reba Place, JPUSA, HotRS, The Anchor, and a few other sources.

Over these next few posts, I want to begin to process through what we have been learning together. But first, I do genuinely want to hear your thoughts. Please take advantage of the comments section to share them.