Archive for October 6, 2006

Manifesto d4.1

October 6, 2006 at 3:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Here is a reposted version with some minor updates…please review it guys…

Our Manifesto.

We are walking and working towards Intentional Community Living. We unpack that phrase by explaining that Intentional indicates a conscious decision, an understanding of calling and gifting, and a commitment to carve time for shared life; Community indicates a desire to co-operate together, to practice deeper sharing and pooling of resources, being a blessing to the community around us and an attitude of incarnational mission; and Living indicates an authentic commitment to the lifestyle a of a disciple -learning, being teachable and practicing spiritual disciplines as well as having a commitment to following the way of Jesus as resurrected Lord and King- with a desire to live a simple life, and to learn contentment in our daily context.

We understand that this is a process as much as a promise. This manifesto states our goals, hopes, and dreams. We embrace those as God given, but we understand they are spoken with unclean lips, that we come from a people of unclean lips, and we understand that we must be willing to become. So we endeavor to be practical and patient. We promise to stretch but commit to honor the conscience and boundaries of every member of our community. We understand that when any of us is troubled or scared all of us have a duty to listen and respond. We are walking this path together, sometimes that means pausing to let some of the group catch up, sometimes that means taking a different path so that everyone can make it, and we hope it means that we all get father then we could ever imagine on our own.

As an Intentional Living Community we value:

  • Community - We desire to be one, to live together and to live our lives together. We seek to understand our faith, our language of/for God (theology), our purpose, and our actions in light of our communal life. We desire to be a family where each of us speaks God’s words to each other, and it is in the sharing of words that we hear The Word that gives life.
  • Hospitality - our orientation is focused on those outside our immediate family. We hope to a place where “the other” is welcomed and embraced.
  • Sharing - we seek to embrace the model of the church in Acts “That shared with each according to their need.” We seek to know the needs of our community (corporate and neighborhood) and to commit to meeting those needs together.
  • Building and Releasing - We are not seeking to become a massive group. We understand that a central part of the Christian life is choosing to bear fruit instead of grow. We hope our community will be formative: shaping, training, and informing others and then that it will help sow them all over. We embrace our own transience and the fact that one day this community may be no more. We are not seeking to build monuments or institutions but to impact lives.
  • Shared Meals - In our shared meals we remember the shared meal of the last supper, we enter into communion with each other and with him who makes us one, and hope to savor a foretaste of Kingdom of God that is like a wedding banquet. Shared Meals are more then utilitarian, they remain a rite - a natural sacrament - between families and friends. We hope to share meals and sacraments together.

The common, driving force underneath all of these goals is our desire to live lives of love that reflect the love of God shown us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our understanding of community begins and ends in our understanding of the Body of Christ. Our understanding of hospitality flows from the example of love Jesus showed to the widow, the gentile, the sick, and the leper. Our understanding of sharing flows from the example of love that Jesus showed when he gave everything, even his life, for us. Our understanding of discipleship flows from the example of Jesus, who trained, nurtured, sometimes even confused, and sent his disciples out into all the corners of the earth.

We believe that the life of love we are called to is distinct from the “American Dream” or the “American way of Life” we feel called to offer an alternative to the dominant meta-narratives of the age. In doing so, we hope to be good news. Good news to the afflicted who see the liberating heart the Christian message as words of hope. Good news to Christians of all stripes who find themselves malnourished by the gospel of cheap grace and the expensive life of consumption. Good news to the prophets of despair who cannot see past the declining attendance, prominence, and influence of modern churches in this post-modern age.

We are excited about where this journey together will take us, joyful that God has brought us into each others lives, and hopeful that the kingdom of God is at hand.

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Hmmmm ….

October 6, 2006 at 2:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

I stumbled across a blog post by Maggie Dawn, a wicked cool Anglican priest, discussing why the intentional community she was part of had trouble. Here is a good quote:

It had a lot to recommend it. I learned a lot, and quite often think back to what I learned there for creative ways of getting on with my life now. But after a spell living there I began to think that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages in terms of whether we were achieving our aims.

Why so?

1) Despite our stated aim, we weren’t actually integrated into the society at all; we had created our own little bubble. So we were, if anything, suggesting an alternative society, but not alternative ways for our actual society to function.

2) we weren’t subverting anything on a grand scale; the likelihood of very many people being aboe to buy into quite such a radical lifestyle was pretty low. So it was only for the determined.

3) - and this is perhaps the killer one - we were, to some extent, parasitic on the culture we aimed to criticise. We weren’t ultimately self-sufficient, and our lifestyle was not sustainable in the long-term. Like the immortal Tom and Barbara of The Good Life, we were living an alternative lifestyle, but once you looked under the surface economically and politically, our ability to be alternative depended upon living within a society that wasn’t alternative. So while claiming to be prophetic it was ultimately dependent upon the system it aimed to subvert.

4) as far as helping people re-integrate themselves into society went, it was certainly good for teaching people how to sleep at night and work in the day, wash their clothes, cook good food, eat instead of drinking, and talk to other people. But it was still a bubble.

Any thoughts or comments?

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