our community

I've been recently talking with a friend about how we used to live in community, so i have been reading my old favorite book and desiring to write on this massive and important topic. The book i love is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. This was a man who lived and taught in an underground sort of seminary with other men, during the Nazi years. He was eventually arrested and killed by the Nazis but was able to minister to those in prison with him before he died, and the letters he wrote while in prison were amazingly preserved for us! Thank You, Lord!!!

In his book, he says many great things, but one thing i am dwelling on is what brings Christians together in a community? He says our reason for coming together should only be "through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this." Kind of reminds me of when Paul said, "I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Yet, how many of us fail to grasp and live out this simple way of life?! We want to be so intellectual, so spiritual, that we lose touch with the heart of our Savior.

Bonhoeffer also warns against coming into the community with "visionary dreaming." He says, "He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial."

Thankfully, my husband and i read this book before ever joining the community in northern Minnesota, so we did as much as we could to not have preconceived ideas as to what we should find there. We came with only a desire to follow Jesus as He was leading. As much as i wanted things like a huge garden that everyone worked on together, i was ready and willing for that to not happen, to let that dream die if it would interfere with the work the Lord wanted to do. And i did have a huge garden, but guess what! I took care of it all by my little self, and i enjoyed every minute of it:)

We moved to Ben Israel Fellowship in Bemidji, MN on June 6, 2002 and left on June 4, 2005. So we were there for three years. I am glad to say that we left on very good terms. Looking back, if only all of us really came for the reasons described by Bonhoeffer, i believe there would have been more people leaving on good terms as we did (or more people willing to stick it out and not leave!). That isn't to say we did every single thing right, but i do think the majority of people that came to live there had more complex reasons for coming than we did. I also think that we would still be living there today if we had not seen so many people leave on not-so-good terms.

When we first moved there, we sold everything and left our high-paying jobs behind. The community we moved to was in the country on 160 acres, which had a big lodge and several other trailers or homes nearby. Those who lived in the lodge were us, an Australian family, a family from Holland, a single guy from CA, and two others from a place called "FIRE school" in Florida. Everyone else lived in their own homes. We were not from the same backgrounds in any way. We grew up secular, or from vastly different denominations, or totally different cultures. Nothing binded us together but that precious blood of the Lamb! Oh, to me, it was the most beautiful thing i'd ever been part of. That was my favorite time. Everything was new, we were all happy and got along great. But over time, day after day together, as you can imagine, we found our differences easily enough. For example, some people were watching movies or listening to music that others found completely offensive. Some people did not put away the milk and other food and just left it out for others to clean up. Some people did more playing than working. Some people had spiritual beliefs that others were passionately against. But at the end of the summer, most of us decided to stay because of all the other wonderful things that were happening around us. We actually witnessed totally lost people getting saved! We witnessed baptisms that were born in heaven and not just some religious obligation. We got to have important spiritual conversations almost every day. We got to experience wonderful revelations and times of worship that brought tears flowing down our cheeks! For me, the good definitely overcame the bad.

So we decided to stay there, as i said, and i will tell you what happened next time...to be continued...