Taking Another Look at Taking Another Look at Community

When I last wrote about "Taking Another Look at Community," which was meant to be an inward reflection on some personal visions, I was surprised to get more feedback than I expected. So I think I'll write a little more about the subject... as if I'm some expert.

Community can obviously be taken in many different forms, you have Hutterites, Bruderhof, the late great Amana Colonies, New Monasticism, the Franciscan Fraternity of Little Brothers, Reba Place Church in Chicago has an apartment complex, the infamous Shane Claiborne lives in a derelict neighborhood with other believers at the Potter Street Community. Communal living exists in as many ways as the imagination can create it. For my purposes I'm going to define it as: Maintaining some sort of geographical proximity that makes possible a sharing of time, resources, and burdens on an even hourly basis.

Community is counter cultural, it is often perceived as cultish and strange. North American culture is quite individualistic and paranoid of anything that resembles communism or socialism in any way, keep your hands off what is mine and I'll keep my hands off of what is yours seems to be the name of the game. Community says, you have need, and I have, let me give to you. Community is voluntary interdependence made possible only by Jesus creating a servants heart in his followers.

Community maximizes the greatest aspect of our existence and faith. Relationship. In Community I share life, both normal and significant, with believers who I am committed to and who are committed to me, to a greater degree. This level of commitment that sets aside significant time and personal preference to grow together is also counter cultural (at least in my experience), creating a safety much like healthy family relationships or marriages, where the deep commitment allows for greater vulnerability.

Community consolidates resources in order to direct more time and energy towards the greatest commandment "Love the lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself." It is quite frankly, cheaper to live together. Less time has to be directed toward a 'career,' there are greater margins in our life to direct towards kingdom building relationships. This too is counter cultural to the rat race of Western Society.

From everything I've read and thought about, and what aspects of community I have experienced, I've learned this: Community is probably a lot more difficult than I realize. It was hard living with family, I get tired of most people after a weeks time. I'm selfish, community will expose that. On the flip side, I believe that we can learn to live counter culturally in community, and that even though it is strange it can bring a new beauty to the darkness that surrounds it. Jesus was weird, he said strange things, things that made it difficult for people to follow him, yet the drunks, tax collectors, and prostitutes flocked to him like piranhas to a piece of bloody meat.

I realize that most of my thoughts are from visions in my mind, not necessarily realities and experiences. I hope that changes soon.