David Janzen - The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus

The Intentional Christian Community Handbook

The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus

Copyright 2013 by David Janzen

ISBN 978-1-61261-237-9

Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptural references are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scriptures marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Janzen, David.

The intentional christian community handbook : for idealists, hypocrites, and wannabe disciples of Jesus / David Janzen and a Community of Friends.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).

ISBN 978-1-61261-237-9 (trade pbk.)

1. CommunitiesReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Spiritual formation. I. Title.

BV4517.5.J36 2012

253dc23

2012022552

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press

Brewster, Massachusetts

www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

To Joanne,

who first caught the vision of church as community, which made her even more attractive to this young adventurer half a century ago.

While David Janzen wrote most of this book, others made vital contributions. In a few cases, chapters were written by others or cowritten by the author with others. These contributors are noted here in the order of their appearance:

Brandon Rhodes

(Springwater Community, Portland, Oregon)

Sally Schreiner Youngquist

(Reba Place Fellowship, Evanston, Illinois)

Andy Ross

(Reba Place Church, Evanston, Illinois)

by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

PART ONE
THE YEARNING FOR COMMUNITY IN CONTEXT

PART TWO
IS INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY YOUR CALLING?

PART THREE
BEFORE YOU MOVE IN TOGETHER

PART FOUR
THE FIRST YEAR OF COMMUNITY

PART FIVE
GROWING TASKS FOR A YOUNG COMMUNITAY

PART SIX
A MATURE COMMUNITY BECOMES SOIL FOR GODS NEW SEEDS

T his is a book that weve needed for a long, long time. Over the past fifteen years, weve sat in living rooms and around kitchen tables with people who have asked the same question: How can we follow Jesus with our whole life? At The Simple Way and at Rutba House, the communities that respectively we call home, weve wrestled with this question in the company of friends and neighbors. Weve talked about it late into the night, and weve invested all we have into ongoing experiments in the truth of the gospel.

In our communities, weve read and reread the Sermon on the Mount. Weve been inspired by ancient monastics and twentieth-century community movements. Weve passed around books by Dorothy Day and Jean Vanier, John Perkins and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Weve tried to learn from those whove gone before us, and weve tried to listen to the distinct new challenges of our day. Weve seen some miracles. Weve failed miserably. Weve learned to forgive and be forgiven. Community has been a classroom for our conversion.

As weve shared the good news that weve seen and heard through these little experiments in the truth of the gospel, weve met thousands of other people who are asking the same question, hearing the same callthe call to follow Jesus into a life of discipleship in community. Seeing in their eyes a look that we recognize from those small circles of friends, we have recognized our common cause in a movement of the Holy Spirit.

God is up to something. Hope is springing up, not in one mighty trunk, but in thousands of shoots. Those shoots are rooted in the Song that gave birth to creation, the Love that moves the sun and other stars. God is stirring something new in our time.

But these shoots of new life in community are fragile, and they need tender care to grow into maturity. Weve learned this the hard wayby seeing firsthand the pain of community-gone-bad. And weve seen so many new communities spring up and die, as Jesus speaks of the seeds that are beautiful but short-lived if they dont grow roots. But in the midst of that pain, weve also seen incredible grace. Most often, grace has come in the form of older mentors whove come to gently share their wisdom.

For both of us, David Janzen has been one of those wise voices. The book that youre holding in your hands is the fruit of his efforts to listen closely to what is happening in dozens of communities today, all the while reflecting back on what hes learned from his own experience in community over the past five decades.

Because David has been formed by community for so long, though, he cant simply tell you what he thinks. He has to tell you what those hes listened to think as well. So this book is also the fruit of conversation and the best kind of conspiracyfriends working together to speak the truth that they know and live. Its a book that truly speaks in a we voice, passing the collective wisdom of generations on to the next.

This is a book for people who long for community and for people whove found it; for young seekers and for old radicals. Like a farmers almanac or a good cookbook, its a guide that doesnt tell you what to do but rather gives you the resources you need to find your way together with friends in the place where you are.

We couldnt be more grateful to have a book like this.

And we couldnt be happier to share it with you.

The Intentional Christian Community Handbook

W ith some books you can skip the introductory stuff where the author tells you what he or she is going to say again later on. However, in this preface I tell stories youll find nowhere else in the bookabout the title, about how I grew up in such a way that nurturing communities has become my passion, and about a group of friends from many different communities who have collaborated to bring together the stories and insights for growing communities that are found in this book. Thank you for coming along.

We live in exciting times, when many new intentional Christian communities are springing up, where young people (and older folks, too) are making a courageous experiment with their lives, moving into abandoned places of empire, trying to live by the words and example of Jesus to love one another as I have loved you. Along the way they are discovering what monastic communities and lay communities have discovered in every generation: to be capable of authentic community we need to undergo a major conversion of life. This is especially true if we have grown up in the soil of a society like ours that has become toxic to community; worships self, money, and power; and scorns the poor. We may know what is wrong with the old world, but we seldom realize how much of that world we still bring along with us as we plant seeds of a new society in the manure of the old. (Hey, I get to say that word because I grew up on a farm.) Although we may be idealists and hypocrites, there is hope for us and for the world if we stick with Jesuswho will surely stick with us.