back to community

I am not pretending to have the answers or the recipe for a great church or community, but i can look back and analyze the good that came from the way we lived in our community:

First, you saw others for who they really are inside. Many times, we make early or inaccurate judgments about people that simply are not the truth. You probably see your pastor as a great guy because he always has great messages, is always smiling, and you may have other reasons for thinking this. But what if he's not the great guy you think he is? What if he has huge faults in his life that you don't know about? What if you discovered these faults? Would that change everything for you? WHen you live in a community, you quickly come to reality. No one is the perfect person you'd like to think they are. That's not to say they don't love the Lord, or that they don't do a lot of things right. But that is to say we are all human, and your pastor is not that much "better" than the next Christian. It is hard to face facts like these, but you must face them in a community.

Second, you saw yourself for who you really are inside. We all tend to think better of ourselves than we ought. When you live in community, you find that others might not think well of you, and you come to see your faults like you have never seen them before. You have to work through that as well. That's not to say we are all doomed to failure, but when you see where you have failed, only then can you make changes within yourself.

Now these two things, seeing others and yourself how you really are, seeing the faults, having the walls removed--can surely work to make you a more genuine, stronger Christian than you were before. However, it also has the potential to make you worse off than before. If you are too proud to admit your faults and work toward changing your ways, you will only build up that pride and cause yourself to be blinded. You will walk away from the hard situation justifying yourself and becoming bitter. In the same way, if you cannot suffer through the faults of your brothers and sisters, then you will again become proud and bitter toward them. You will have evil thoughts about how YOU could NEVER do what that person has done. You will find it hard to forgive them and go on in friendship with them. These situations could make you into a peacemaker, which is pleasing in God's sight, but too often they can make you more stubborn and blind to your faults than before.

Here is where i have many examples, but i will have to choose...there was a couple that came to live with us. They were in their 50's but had only been married a couple of years. At first, you would think this woman was the most delighful, sweet-natured, godly woman you ever met. That is what i thought. You would think she and her husband had a good relationship because they always got along in front of you and joked around together. You thought he was a happy man, filled with the Spirit of God. But as they lived among us, day after day, you began to see that was not the case. Their marriage was unraveling right before our eyes. He was bitter toward her because she stopped loving him. She was bitter toward him because he was not who she thought he was when she married him. She felt justified in refusing to love him the way he needed to be loved. Finally, sadly, she gave him an ultimatum (this is what she told me it was). She said he could either change this and that, or he had to leave. He left! I can testify that she loved her dog more than she loved that man. It was so incredibly sad. I could not believe it even as it happened. She went on to get remarried, and she sees herself as totally justified in her actions. I don't know what became of him.

In the prayer meetings, you have to understand, she knew all the right words, all the songs, she knew how to pray, she knew how to be sweet toward everyone...everyone except her own husband. Now i'm not saying her husband didn't have faults; of course he did. But it was not enough to justify her behavior by any means!

The saddest part of this story is that there are so many situations/relationships like this one in the church, and we have no idea. Why do we have no idea? Because our relationships with each other are weak. They are like a dream. We aren't living in reality. We think more highly of some than we ought; or we think more poorly of some than we ought. I have another story about a girl that you may judge at first as ditzy or weird, but on getting to know her, she is actually very godly and full of wisdom! The Bible warns us, "Stop judging by the flesh and make a right judgment!" In the church, we are judging by the flesh and living in a lie because we don't know each other.

So at least i can say for community, the truth comes out...and more often than not, it's a painful truth you're dealing with. You can't just go on to think about lunch after the meeting is over.

Ahh, but joy comes in the morning!...and that's what i'll talk about next time.

community life continued

The community consisted of some families living in trailers and some in houses, but we all lived within walking distance of each other. We tried to take care of the land together, as we were able. Each of us had our own job in the town nearby, but we met for prayer every morning at 8:00. Of course, you weren't required to come to the prayer meetings, but these were my favorite times, so i got a job that didn't start till 10:00. The meetings took place at "Mama Rose's" trailer, as she was called. She made coffee and tea for us each morning. She is a precious elderly soul, my true grandma in the faith! She's over 80 now and still praying each morning together with the saints who will come. We would briefly discuss what we wanted to pray about, if anything, or we would just start singing praises to the Lord. Man, how i loved those times. How i miss it...

They tried different ways of life before we came along. The community had been there nearly 30 years when we moved in. They had tried living in the same house together, sharing a common purse, all working the same job together, communal gardens, etc. But all those things didn't work out. What they had at the time seemed to work best for that particular community. I was glad, because it was hard enough living together without sharing a house and purse.:)

Each summer, the elders of our community put on what they called a "Prophetic School," which was basically a Bible study of Old and New Testament Prophecies. We studied a lot about Israel and the Jews, a subject that is sadly missing from many modern churches. That sort of study led me to a deeper knowledge and appreciation for the faith. It truly made me a more genuine lover of Jesus. It also gave me more confidence to approach my Father in heaven with greater prayers, for i knew He was listening, and i knew what He had planned for the future of the world. I knew my place as a gentile, and the future that's in store for the Jews who were cut off for the sake of the gentiles! Wow, it was too amazing for me to even discuss. But i wondered how so much of this could be missing from the church.

During those summers, we met people from all over the U.S. and all over the world. Our founder, Art Katz, spent a lot of time traveling and bringing the Word to these precious people during the year. He faced a lot of rejection, but those who did accept the word he spoke were very eager to hear more. They sacrificed a lot to be able to attend that summer school!

Some people, including myself and my family, were afraid that this place might be a cult. After all, it was secluded out in the beautiful woods, and we had a "leader," if you could call him that. But based on the definition of a cult, even churches could be considered cults. Suffice it to say that whenever we went there to see for ourselves, or when our families came to visit, all fears were put at rest. Art was gone traveling so much of the time. He was ususally only there for the summers or small visits. When he was there, we were grateful, but if he wasn't there, it was no big deal. We were in God's hands. I never felt that anyone was controlled in any way or that anyone's privacy was invaded. Art knew that only the Holy Spirit could convict and change a person, so he kept his hands off. If anything, we lacked a better source of leadership. I think if we had followed the Bible's instructions on how to seek out leaders for the church, we may have not had people leave. Maybe the problems could've been handled differently...? But who am i to say? It was what it was, and i loved it for the mostpart.

The way people left was usually due to a disagreement that was not resolved. Someone might misunderstand a message that was given, so they would tell others they disagreed and sides would form on a certain issue. Now, why doesn't this happen more in normal churches? For one thing, what the preacher says does not matter a whole lot in our personal lives. It is a one-hour message, and then you start thinking about lunch. You don't have to see or hear about the preacher or the church again until a whole week later. Sometimes we might not agree with him, but we quickly forget because his opinion doesn't really matter to us. But what Art taught mattered because we lived with him, we knew his life intimately, we knew of his failures; therefore, what he taught mattered more to us.

Secondly, this kind of falling out doesn't happen more often because the preacher is ususally telling us what we want to hear, or he is telling us something that doesn't really stir us up to change. He usually has a theme, and then he might have decorations put up that go with the theme. He might have some special music to put in there. He will likely have stories to go along with it. So in the end, it turns out to be more of an entertainment, a production, than a life-altering call to change your life in some way. Art's messages usually did the latter to people. He called us to live more devoted, holy, and true lives. And you either loved it and cried over it, or you bucked against it because you knew he was right but you didn't want to change your ways. Or you might totally disagree with him and get upset and think he is wrong. Whatever the case, it moved you in some way.

to be continued....again...