The Rise and Demise of intentional Christian Community or Finding The Cure for Spiritual Myopia.

A recent visit to a promotional evening for a UK based intentional Christian Community (ICC) has prompted me to write this post. I write from the perspective of someone who has been part of  ICC, in one form or another, for most of my Christian journey.

During the evening we were asked to make comparisons between the early days of this particular community, around the beginning of the 1970's and the present period, 2011.
I assume that the intention was to discover (although this was never made clear)  the things that inspired those early pioneers of this ICC in an attempt to find a way to recruit members to this slowly fading group.

It became evident to me through the feedback, and it's subsequent interpretation by the person writing on the white board, that in this, and probably other ICC groups there has developed a form of Myopia, possibly brought on by past long term disengagement from the world outside.
Although there was an attempt by some of the more progressive members of the group to look at reasons within, it became clear that those who had organised the evening attributed the current lack of popularity for ICC, to reasons without. The current cultural climate and the selfishness of a consumerist society being the general headings.

It is my intention in this and following posts to try and discover how what was once a very switched on group of people, have managed to become dysfunctional and out of step with the Holy Spirit.
It would seem from the feedback received that night, that the Remainder of Christendom, who don't exist in ICC (probably about 90% of the Church worldwide) are selfish, gadget orientated, money lead, and messed up in their souls, unable to see the benefits of ICC.

Sadly this myopic approach does little to attract, and does more to reinforce, the many prejudices that are aimed at Christianity  and the shared lifestyle of Intentional Christian Community which is found in some of it's more radical expressions.

It is also my intention to highlight some of the I/C Communities that have managed to avoid this and are making a major difference to those around them and to society in general.

In posts to come..
Living Community vs living in community.
New Creation Christian Community.
The simple way, Philadelphia PA USA.
Rutba House, North Carolina USA.
Church communities UK (Bruderhof)
Plus other ICC groups in the UK.