Thoughts on Living With Other Believers
Alternate title: The Sanctifying Nature of Intentional Christian Communities.
God has been bringing to mind the relational ways that we are sanctified, that is made holy. The two most common of these are marriage and child-rearing. Both require an enormous amount of sacrifice to another person at the expense of yourself. And when the believer does either of these two things well, we die to ourselves and become more Christ-like.
Today, I’d like to discuss a third type of relationship that can sanctify and bear fruit – when Christian brethren dwell together in the same home, or at least very proximal to one another. When they share cooking, shopping, cleaning, space, time, discipline of children (!), and much more.
If one of my housemates pisses me off, there’s no going back to my home and complaining about it to my wife in private (as was the case if the “offense” [term used very lightly] happened during Sunday School)… it will be dealt with quickly, as its going to cause friction in every interaction every day until resolved. I’ve been angered and angered enough people to guarantee that that will happen if a home is to function.
Ultimately for every person that’s added to a house, that’s one more set of concerns, quirks, desires, and pet peeves that the entire rest of the house must be aware of and think of when making decisions. To make it work, all of the members must be willing to submit to one another in many many small things. Suddenly my decision to:
-stay up late,
-get a new job,
-get a new car,
-stop eating certain types of foods,
-have people over to our home,
-believe a certain thing,
-not be able to stand a certain thing
all effect more people than just myself, my wife, and my children. They effect everyone I live with and may live with in our community.
That’s not to say its always hard and its all about dying to yourself and sacrifice. Much like marriage and children, when it’s good, its really good. I’ve grown closer to people that I have lived with/am living with than I could have ever expected to if we hadn’t lived together. We’ve laughed till we’ve cried, gotten the most amazing hugs from their children, and made some of the best home movies ever. We gather to pray in good times and bad, and we cook and clean for one another. It’s such a blessing.
Well, that’s the end of the post! Mostly.
(Theological footnotes: These are the benefits of communal living [partially], but not why we do it. We do it because we feel this is what God has called us to. We don’t believe Christians living communally is a command of the Bible generally for all everywhere, but that some of the language used to describe the church gathering in Acts 2 can be mimicked by living communally. To become a part of our church, there’s no requirement or expectation that you will live communally, and no condemnation if you don’t.)
