Living Community Pt2

After the decisions were made to live our lives as shared ones with other believers and so be able to impact the world around us more effectively we embarked on a whirlwind of house moves, new towns and cities and mission, all so we could try out ways of living a shared life. Some were more successful than others.

Our small family home was often bursting at the seams with Students from the local uni, or some guy we had met on the streets the night before, slightly intoxicated or heavily under the influence of some substance or other.

Looking back we probably appeared a little foolish to some of the folks from  the local Church groups that we had attached ourselves to, especially as we had six small children of our own.
When we told folk that the morning after we had provided hospitality to some waif or stray and that some of our household goods had gone missing you could almost hear their thoughts of " well what did you expect?"

Interestingly we continued to bump into groups from the Jesus Army/New Creation Christian Community during our adventures, we felt that we were on a parallel path and received much encouragement from them.

It was a struggle to find other Christians to share our enthusiasm for the common life but as time went on a little band formed, eight or so adults, some who moved in with us and others who lived close by.
The excitement and enthusiasm was there but if I am to be honest we didn't have much of a clue as to what we were doing.
Nevertheless we muddled through and as we are all still on speaking terms today I would say we survived the experience.

As time moved on we decided that we wanted to be part of something bigger and slightly more organised. So eventually we all in one way or another joined ourselves to the Jesus Army / New creation Christian Community (NCCC), those radical, inspiring people that had triggered things off for me many years earlier.

The intent of these posts is not to meant to be an analysis of that experience, especially as NCCC is itself going through a reshaping and re-envisioning time but to look at whether big organised community is actually "Living Community" or if there really are ways of Living community without actually living in the same property, as a large organised group? (the reason I ask this question is that the community life of the Church is often spoken of and claimed to be active but  often not very visible or even very tangible, the talk doesn't match the walk, from our experience)
Or is something more organic  whats needed at this time?
And if it's possible what are the pitfalls, what are the advantages?

Just to finish this post I would like to go back to those early days, times when our home was bursting at the seams with students from the local Uni.
Both my wife and I feel that this was a successful part of the journey, we were able to provide a warm caring environment for many young Christian men and women who were away from family, some quite a distance for probably the first time, who although looking forward to some freedom also longed for the security of family and home. We feel privileged to have been able to be Mum and Dad to these young lives, as well as ourselves and our children benefiting from their friendship and the big contribution they made to the kingdom life as we shared the ups and downs of daily living.

So this post was a little bit of a blast into the past, but I felt it important to lay a foundation, albeit briefly, that we're not without experience on the subject of community life, nor shall I be talking out of the proverbial armpit on the subject. (That is a matter of opinion of course)

Coming up... Is the shared life the normal Christian life or is it a gospel add on?
Who's doing it and is it working?
How do you measure success?

Living Community Pt1

I still remember the excitement we felt as my wife and I realised back in the early 80's that being part of the Christian Church was like joining an international, national and local family, and not belonging to some exclusive club and hobnobbing with those that were in and ignoring those that were out.

I had just returned from an outreach at the Glastonbury festival where the Youth for Christ team that I was a part of had just spent the weekend with a group from Bugbrooke in Northamptonshire called the Jesus Army, an experience that changed me forever both in regards to evangelism and Church practice.

It seemed that this JA (Jesus Army) group had found a way to be Church 24/7. They shared all things in common and regarded nothing as their own, they lived for each other and for the kingdom, which they called Zion.

This wasn't new of course, the model could be found in the book of acts and the history of the early Church. The difference was that they were actually doing it in the 20th century.

I had experienced some of this type of thinking before, my parents had always operated an open house policy. It wasn't unusual for me to arrive home to a house full of teenagers seeking some form of help or another or to find a gentleman of the road (commonly called a tramp) sitting in our kitchen eating a plate of food.
Mum and Dad later had a deeper shared lifestyle with a young man they befriended through Church where they pooled resources on a practical level, washing machines, car, meals etc.

So encouraged by this different way of doing Church we opened our home to any and all and were prepared to share our meager possessions with any who had need or felt the call to a communal lifestyle.

Of course the reality was different and we soon realised that those who saw an ongoing intentional shared life as part of their Christian calling were few and far between. This didn't stop us though and some time later after leaving our home town we spent some twelve plus years living in intentional Christian community.

But that experience is not what this story is about...
The question I want to explore is can you live community without living in intentional community, communally?

There is reason behind the question. As the years have moved on circumstances have changed, life in the UK has changed and community life at all levels both Christian or other is at an all time low.
Even the Jesus Army (New creation Christian community) is going through some serious changes in direction.
Yet many still long for that shared existence, that life that is interdependent , the desire to live simply and open with others and to be able to share with the lonely and needy that are around us.
Can this still happen without the communal living of a large household in one or more large properties? Does it need the rigid structure that some put in place, structure that would eventually strangle life and spontaneity and cause decline.

I believe it can and there are examples of something new, something organic, happening around us now.
Is this new? how will it work? is it more like what happened in the book of Acts than the previous incarnation?

part two coming soon. 

Surprise surprise continued.

One last thing,  over the years we have been on a search  around the Uk for less organised and more organic expressions of Christian community and have often been disappointed with what we found. 
Frank Viola made this statement in a recent blog post... 

"In discovering what is often described as an organic expression of Church is almost always a small-is-beautiful version of the institutional church. And some of them are highly-legalistic, highly-toxic groups"

This is sadly what we have found, not in all cases and it's probably a bit unfair to say that everyone was highly toxic, but most had not given the headship over to Jesus and were often lead by Mr and Mrs Pastor who even with the best of intentions shape things according to their own agenda.

Anyway back to my original reason for posting, "How then shall we live and how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land" ? 
There is much to learn from those who have gone before and as I/we journey on with the dispersed community from Northumbria, structure our day around the daily office, make ourselves available to God and each other, leaving space to give hospitality to the stranger and being Church without walls we will find ourselves on a new adventure, the next part of the journey, Further up and Further in. 

By the way being Church without walls is an inclusive thing, we feel comfortable with all of the community of saints regardless of labels and distinctives but our roots are firmly with those who intentionally live a shared life, who regard nothing as there own and who exist in genuine koinonia community.

Surprise, surprise.

I think the surprise is on me, this is my first post since sometime in 2011... six years of silence.
Recent health issues have meant time at home, time to read, time to think, time to catch up, basically time.
My wife and I have just stopped working for the charity we set up some six years ago and have realised how much time the project took up, in fact nearly all our time was consumed by it.

So it all happened at once, I retired from St Judes, and developed some health issues almost immediately. I guess they were already there but I didn't have time to notice.

I was reading a book by Paul Wallis on new monasticism recently where he commented that during his time as an Anglican vicar he realised that his life was so busy that he didn't have the time to meet the needs of those who came to him outside of his scheduled program. Often missing the opportunity to feed the hungry clothe the naked etc.

Just recently I have realised the benefit of having a Rule to live by, you know what I mean a monastic rule not a set of rules, but a statement of purpose, an answer to to question "How Should We Live". 
Not being one to reinvent the wheel or any other component for that matter, I have become very thankful to the Northumbria Community who many years ago asked the same question and have ever since been on a Journey of discovery. The wisdom that they have discovered is available via the good old WWW. or in printed matter available from all good book sellers.

I have been using the daily office for some time and have found the discipline of the liturgy freeing and releasing, which for those who know me of old will be a great shock. I guess age really does change perspective and bring wisdom, perhaps the wisdom is a bit of a stretch but there is no doubt that I am comfortable with things that at one time I wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole.

I have again been reminded that busyness is not the same as Godliness and that activity that consumes all your time can easily take you away from the one thing that is important, or the one thing that is necessary see Lk10:42.
So in my 59th year I am rediscovering the beauty of genuine koinonia community, of journeying with others of a like mind, of spending time in quiet reflection and rediscovering that the Jesus I follow is still there. I/we were just to busy to realise.

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.

I remember when...

Just recently my wife, teenage daughter and I walked around the village where I was born. Although my family moved to a nearby town at an early age, this is where I spent a good deal of my childhood, staying with my paternal grandmother.
As we walked familiar views conjured up warm feelings of long hot summer days fishing in the brook that ran alongside my grandmothers cottage and the smell of the countryside drifting in through the open gable end, attic window, which was my bedroom for the duration of my stay.
At the end of the street is the building which housed the Methodist Church youth club where I would spend hours running around the maze of corridors and rooms stopping occasionally to roll a ball on the snooker table or bash the ping pong ball. Further along the street, past the the "White Horse" (the local watering hole) is the village playing field, or probably better described as a field that you can play in. Where I could see in my mind the beaten up, crunched, burnt out car wrecks, the remains of the latest stock car meet as memories of climbing over the bonnet of the nearest car in the vain hope that it had some life left in it and that the engine would magically spring into life allowing me to drive at breakneck speed around the track, came flooding back.
From what I recall this never happened but that I was content to scramble in and out of the cars, pull on the steering wheels and and imagine the noise and the smell of the local demolition derby.

As I was giving my daughter a running commentary of these things whilst snapping away with my idiot proof camera the memories faded and the stark realism of the present day knocked into me with enough force to wind me and jolt me back into 2011.
The brook water was dirty and full of weed, no sign of fish only a couple of coke cans. The attic with its gable end window now belonged to someone else, the Methodist Church buildings looked derelict with the little bridge across the brook blocked off because it is unsafe and the playing field now has two goal posts and a rotting set of portacabins that were once changing rooms, with no stockcars in sight.

Now, I am not in the habit of drifting off into sentimental daydreams, in fact I have often taught that trips into nostalgia are the products of a mind that is unable to cope with the reality of living in the present. So what was this all about.
I had been giving a lot of thought just recently to some Christians from a UK Church who are constantly wishing that the movement they are a part of (that was once a living organism now more an organisation)  recovers the values and ways of the past. This type of regressive thinking is dangerous and doesn't bring about growth. It can cause movements that were once radical (meaning from the root) being unable to interpret those radical values in the light of the new day.
For those who are part of this particular Church and others like it, this is reflected in the structure of their Church life, especially in the administration where keeping the system running smoothly takes precedence over caring for the people, where loving the people becomes secondary to the facts and figures of administration and where the administrators are so out of touch with the present that their application of the system falls short of peoples needs.

Often evangelism is carried out using tried and tested outdated methods, with the usual lack of response being quickly covered up with phrases like "well we sowed some seeds today" or "this is a really hard area" or my all time favorite "we met lots of old friends". Surely the purpose of outreach is to make NEW friends, old friends are taken care of within the pastoral structure of the Church/group, although sadly they had probably voted with their feet a long time ago.
I have no doubt that God is alive, well and active amongst His prime creation human beings and is about the business of building His Church. I have serious doubts however as to the life and well being of parts of His Church or called out people who have become as organised as the institutions they left behind when the Holy Spirit gave them a wake up call so many years ago.

What is it about humans that so desperately want to box up the creator, give Him a label and tell Him how he should be running His Church?
We see His power, which is spelt LOVE, at work amongst us. We then design a system for that power to function within and expect Him to perform within our own prescribed boundaries.
As CS Lewis once penned "Aslan is on the move" whilst reminding us that "He isn't a Tame lion" (Chronicles of Narnia)

The creator is not responsible for the lack of growth in the parts of His Church that are less than they ought to be, it is our responsibility, so we must stop trying to tame the lion.

This is not a problem that just happens in some of the older groups or denominations, some of the so called new Churches have succumbed to the problem of administrators and administration, and in doing so have lost the ability to interpret the values, that caused them to be so radical in the first place, in the light of the new day.

This is a time to let Aslan roam free among us, to be open to fresh ways, to flow with the Holy Spirit. To deal once and for all with the fear of change and to sack, get rid of, kick into touch (or alternativley pray for them and counsel them) dominant administrators and their administrations.

It is interesting to note that administrators don't appear in the list of the people gifts that Jesus gives to His Church (Eph4:11-12). It does seem that the Church was meant to be able to train, minister and be built up without their input. In the light of (1Cor12:) and (Rom12:) the administrator may come under gifts of service but is still to be subject to the Apostle and Prophet, an apostolic administrator is the invention of a very fertile imagination and would come under the heading of extra biblical, but then so would a lot of things.
Administration is sometimes necessary, should never be controlling and should never determine faith and practice.

 Memories can be good and if so should be filed away for those special moments when we are allowed the luxury of them. The bad memories are to be handed over to the King of Kings who renews our mind.
Jesus is Lord!

Sentimental Hogwash

Just recently at home we started to switch on the DAB radio in the kitchen . There was a conscious decision made that we would "tune in" to a Christian station rather than listen to self indulgent hogwash that comes from most other music stations. The noise buzzed in the background for most of the time with the occasional item catching my attention, that is until the beginning of December when this particular station started its Christmas programme.
Suddenly I was gripped, and started to listen with my attention-o-meter rising to it's highest level.
It began to dawn on me that I was listening to the biggest portion of sentimental hogwash that I had been served up in a long time.
Songs about snowmen, chestnuts, open fires and the mythical character santa clause had replaced the music that was Jesus focused, honouring, praising and declaring the King of Kings.
Short talks using dubious illustrations and making dubious points to fit in with the coming season made up the rest of this seasonal cheese sandwich.

Why is it that some Christians, not all,  find it difficult to use this celebration to love and serve humanity in the name and strength of the one who's birth is being celebrated,  instead getting drawn into the sentimental hogwash of self indulgent, glutenous celebration?

Maybe the problems that Roman emperor Constantine experienced in the 3rd century A.D. are similar to the situation today. He discovered that he had a lot of unconverted converts on his hands, who had  found it economically and politically expedient to convert to the religion of the empire but desperately missed the partying of two of the main celebrations of their time.
The restless and complaining masses caused Constantine, in his desperation to please the people, to declare two new celebrations to take place at the same time as the old celebrations, one in December to celebrate the birth of Jesus and one in the spring to celebrate his resurrection.
Everything calmed down as the people realised that they could still have their two main party times, albeit with different names and a bit of religion thrown in, party to excess was still going to happen, and it most excessively did!! ( you will need to check for yourself to see how Romans partied)

Maybe for the converted convert NOW is time the time to keep the celebration simple, to love the poor, to be a friend to the lonely, to visit the elderly or the sick, to make a place at your table for the homeless or the addicted, to move away from the mountains of food, the stacks of presents and the crates of alcohol, in favour of  "a world full of starving, deprived people who are silently and invisibly looking in on the self indulgent, sentimental hogwash, begging for a scrap of food, a rag to keep them from shivering to death, and an answer to their misery, suffering, and oppression" (Keith Green 1979)

Indulge yourself in the true meaning of the season, give yourself to the work of spreading the Gospel! Proclaiming freedom to the captives! Giving them bread to eat and pointing them to the bread of life.

Oh, don't ignore it, Christmas that is, don't join the bury your head in the sand brigade, grasp the nettle, quickly (stings less) and do something positive and purposeful.