As many of you know, September 1 began our foray into sharing living space with other believers who happen to not be in our immediate family.
Before we left for Korea, I don’t know that Becca and I would have seriously considered this. Oh, there were pie in the sky conversations with Larry T and other house church members about living together on some sort of compound, but I’m not sure any of us took it seriously enough past a desire to live more of life together since we lived fairly far from one another.
Then Becca and I moved to Korea, not knowing that the primary blessing of our time there would be inclusion in a community of believers like none we had previously experienced. We lived in an apartment building commonly referred to as the “ICS dorm” since many of the teachers at our school lived there. ICS teachers squatted in 5 of the 6 apartments in the building. Becca and I learned what it meant to have an open door policy with people who live across the hall (kinda like Joey, Chandler, Monica and Rachel in Friends). Lifelong relationships were forged in weeks or months. It was amazing. Coupled with a meeting we began in our living room, discipleship, worship, prayer and fellowship spontaneously erupted … and often.
As others left our hobbit-like community, we heard the same qualifier over and over: “This doesn’t exist anywhere else.” And so they would move back to America and resign themselves to the individualistic life of suburban Christianity.
Becca and I were then called away from Korea back to Atlanta … but why? God clearly answered: to foster more fellowship and community among the Body in Atlanta. We knew it would be long and ardous, challenging in ways we haven’t yet dreamed, and we have not been disappointed.
Of course, one of the main thoughts we had was to share living space (a house, apartment, etc) with other believers we were in fellowship with, much as we had in Korea. Our initial idea did not materialize, and so we waited for God to open other doors.
God had been working on other’s hearts, as well. The d10s and another couple in their house church, Eric and Heather, had similar musings. All along the way I learned this idea of shared living had been given a label (doesn’t everything need a label?): new monasticism.
Yuck. Being who I am, its growing popularity caused me to hesitate, to self-evaluate. Why are we looking at this? Is it truly of God or are we attempting to reproduce something meant to be unique?
One of my main meditations hinged around an attraction to dorm living in our culture. For many who have gone away to college, dorm living can be a very romanticized time of their life. Even most college students who lived in an apartment had to have roommates, many times several to survive.
Look at the most popular TV sitcoms. Friends and Seinfeld gave this feeling of close living, easy accesibility to one another … in a way, Everybody Loves Raymond is very similar.
Was this new monasticism only a desire to return to the Neverland of college living? A part of me will always be a Toys R US kid who never wants to grow up. Are we attempting to live out this sitcom utopia fed to us by the idiot box? Is new monasticism a Christian attempt at a worldly system? Or is it perhaps that the frathouse mentality has tapped into a truly spiritual principle in decadent disguise?
I don’t honestly know. Maybe a little of both, I suspect. But I know when God speaks to me, and I know He is doing this in the Body of believers around me. And I know I’m meant to be a part of it, even to initialize it on some level.
So Becca and I had preliminary discussions with Eric and Heather. We even discussed moving in with Ben and Gina. Ultimately, it seemed moving in with E and H was the direction we needed to go. So we talked money and intent and expectations and my general messiness.
And here we are. Since moving back from Korea, we’ve seen Jeremy and Saji move in with the d10s; Adam move in with Alice, a widow; and we moved in with Eric and Heather. And I believe more is to come, whatever that may look like.
My prayer for all of us is that as we spend more time with Christ (one another) that we would love as Christ. For He is the goal, after all.
Peace.
You can always say you were thinking about thenew monastasism before it was cool or even labeled as such.
Seriously, I don’t believe what you described could be an imitaion of the Seinfield/Friends type of community. While their fruits were being incurably single and repeating the same mistakes with new people, the community you were a part of had the fruits you described, such as spontaneous worship.
I look forward to hearing how God blesses this. Keep us posted.