Community in the Bush
“That’s such a small community that there’s nothing to do but visit friends and eat and sing and talk all night. It was a wonderful time….”
These comments by Kelly about life in the Bush are very true.
I’ve lived in farm country my whole life, but my first experience with true community was in Alaska. I think about that community often as I ponder how to “create community” at home. Bush communities are close and dependent out of nessesity. I am starting to think that this may be one of the keys to real community, making them a nessesity. This means we have to make choices to limit some technology and habits that are anti-community. The area that we lived in had a very large number of christians in it. This was “independent bible church” country, so the community did not form out of some sort of theological idea. It was what we reformed folks would call a “covenant community” in many ways, but interestingly, it formed out of a group of people who very “uncovenantal” in their theology. This is another interesting thing about Christian Agrarain ideas on comunity and on living in general. We are a group of people who cross many denominational lines and we seem to have a sence of cathlicity that is rarely found in our day. I think that this shows that many of the tenets of our ideas are simple biblical truths that are simply Christian teachings. Well, I’m rambling now, back to community. Community is great when we feel like living it, but, when we get feeling a little uncomfortable we try to escape. An example would be everyone knowing everything you do, this is a very important part of how community keeps its members accountable. In the bush we could not escape this. There are lots of other examples but the idea here is that somehow we have to make the choice to block off escape routes. Instead of saying “lets build a community”, perhaps we should consider puting ourselves in a position that community “just happens out of nessesity”.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
In real life terms, it is something of a mystery to me why the most theologically non-covenantal Christian sects (conservative Anabaptists) live the most covenantally. Perhaps it is because they get to the same result via their theology of “Gemeinde” and “Gemeinshaft” in which they live as though the Church is a real, non-abstract brotherhood and community.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Jeff S — that is, indeed a mystery. But it has driven one of the most hyper-covenantal (used as a compliment) Presbyterian pastors I know to try to develop some type of relationship between his Presbyterian church and the Amish community in his area, because they are living practically much of what he teaches and believes in.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Hello Gentlemen
I have been thinking about this a bit lately. I really think that the reformed folks refusal to make wise choices regarding technology that effects community is a big part of why we really look no different than the world. I used to see the Amish as a bounch of legalist gone mad, now I see an awful lot of wisdom in how they live. Just thinking out load here….
September 26th, 2006 at 6:25 am
Scott,
I appreciate your post and the subject in general.
One of the elders in Coram Deo Fellowship talks of ‘covenant community’ a lot and I have read some about it but am pursuing a clearer picture of it.
You wrote, “Instead of saying “lets build a community”, perhaps we should consider puting ourselves in a position that community “just happens out of nessesity”
Could you give a practical and specific example or two of how that would happen in a person’s life?
I am thinking that it is a concept that takes the edge off of ‘rugged individualism’ or ’self sufficiency’. It embraces self sufficiency to a point but also embraces neighbor helping neighbor, possibly sharing expensive equipment, barn raisings, helping out in times of crisis as well as spending an occasional (frequent?) evening enjoying life together.
I am sure there is more to it than that, though. Any help you could give in helping me understand would be…..helpful.
September 26th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Scott, I think the reality is that there is a lot of legalism in Amish circles, BUT that the basis for their “laws” was some good thinking. The problem isn’t the general rightness of some of their views, but rather, their notion that law can solve the problems of human sin. On the other hand, other Christians who realize that law cannot solve the problem soon throw out the wisdom that provided the basis for what became the “law” — and throw out God’s law together with man’s law that was intended to apply God’s law. If we could be balanced Christians, and be willing to submit to God’s law INCLUDING APPLYING IT IN THIS CENTURY but without, on the other hand, writing new wooden manmade laws to force this application, we would be where we should be. Achieving that balance is apparently as hard as a camel going through the eye of a needle.
Justin: I am fond of saying (and you’ve probably seen me say it at the Milkmaid’s site) that we are to be:
1. Independent from pagans, and pagan systems.
2. Interdependent together with the saints of God.
3. Totally dependent on God.
The Missouri Rev. points out that the biggest obstacle to covenant Christian community is the pride that manifests itself as self-sufficiency (and since no one is truly self-sufficient, then it means turning to pagans instead of believers for help) and in an unwillingness to humble ourselves to keep covenant and live charitably with our brothers. If we are offended, we don’t want to bend, and don’t want to work out differences according to the procedure God’s word gives, and using the terms of God’s word for the basis of reconciliation. Tom thinks that God will have to humble the church greatly (think of what happened to Israel during the time of the judges) before it will be willing to keep covenant and live under his law. We would rather live under the tyranny of pagan rulers, than under God’s law. And God will continue to make the pagan rulers worse and worse until we are broken enough to submit to his law.
Just some more rambling thoughts …
JFC
September 27th, 2006 at 5:45 am
Justin wrote… “Could you give a practical and specific example or two of how that would happen in a person’s life?”
MMM….Nope. The only time I’ve ever seen it work(with my own eyes) is in areas that are very romote or in the Amish community where they come together and agree to limit comminity killing technology. Neither one fits what most of us find ourselves doing.
Jon is completly right in his summary…
1. Independent from pagans, and pagan systems.
2. Interdependent together with the saints of God.
3. Totally dependent on God.
This is what we must strive for. I only bring up this “community stuff” every once and a while becouse some of our brothers and sisters tend downplay its importance and poke fun at anyone that tries to work out doable solutions. Community of the saints must be the end point of this whole agrarian “movement”….we must not get to comfortable being “one family islands” in a sea of pagens.
Most of it doesn’t aply Right Now to alot of us, myself included. Our congragation is very spread out. All live about 30 miles in every direction away from the church. We have no phisicle community of likeminded beleivers. What I’m working at is bringing the many saints that do live around me (wich are made up of many different denomonations) together in our common Faith in Christ and and our Baptisms to live peacably together while keeping our distinctives and worshiping apart. Big job, very little progress.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
“All live about 30 miles away in every direction away from the church.”
Every congregation I know of is like this, especially out here in the sparsely populated west. And it is truly the crux of the matter. I’ve come to believe there is no practical way to build community unless there is first proximity. And, even proximity by itself won’t do it; you still have to walk up to your neighbor’s door and knock on it. But let’s say proximity would be the first step; how many of us choose where we live based on how many committed believers are in the neighborhood? I would wager that most of us would think nothing of moving across the continent, or even to a different continent, if we thought we were going to benefit financially from the move. But… move just to be closer to other christians? You can’t be serious. But the fact is, we need proximity before community can develop. Think about all the ‘one another’ oriented passages in the Bible. Love one another. The greatest among you shall be servants of all. Pray for one another. bear one another’s burdens. Without living next to your brother, how do we obey these commands? Our so-called love of the brethren has become lip service; because we can’t be there when he has a need. Telephones and computers are handy for telling a brother ‘be warm and fed’ but it takes arms to wrap a blanket around him and hands to feed him. Our orthodox confession and compassionate speech does not a community make. Yet, more and more, that is what passes for christian community in our age. We send each other ‘thank you’ cards and ‘thinking of you’ letters and we think we’ve done our duty. See Lord, we’ve shown love to the brethren. It’s not that cards and letters aren’t needed and appreciated, but honestly, is that the full extent of christian community?
But I know what you mean about bringing up the issue of community in our churches. The whole idea just scares people to death. I’ve been accused of being a communist by bringing it up. Or some touchy feely liberal schmuck; the kind that want to join hands and sing ‘kumbaya’. Even good friends look at me like I’m from Mars when I bring it up. The modern church’s general refusal to take real community seriously is the biggest frustration I have about church life.
Maybe it’s because of my work back-ground, but I’ve noticed that people pull together wonderfully when there is a short-term emergency. And that’s certainly a good start. But is that the only time we need each other; when someone’s house burns down? Somehow, I don’t think that’s what St. Peter had in mind when he described the church as ‘living stones, fitted and joined together’.
Sorry to rant so much, Scott. This subject is like a tooth ache for me. I need to quit taking pain medicine and have the dang thing pulled one of these days. But I’ll admit it, I’m scared too. The tooth ache is familiar at least.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Bear with me here folks, I am sorry to seem thickheaded to ya’ll but I must be missing the extensiveness or depth of what you mean by community. I within 50 miles of Aamish communities but am not too familiar with how they work together in community.
It seems to me like you are saying that while we do on occasion do good to our brothers and help them out on the occasions where they find themselves in ‘need’, these acts still fall short of living in true community. For example, let’s say a fellowship gets together and has a monthly potluck dinner. Okay, let’s be honest and say they desire to do it monthly, but it only works out every other month on average. Let’s say that when someone in the fellowship moves or has a major project to face the rest of the fellowship chips in and helps with labor, meals, etc., but this only happens a couple times a year. Most of the socialization revolves around Lord’s Day and homeschool activities. I am getting the idea that while these are a step in the right direction, there is a mile or two left to walk.
Am I right in that last paragraph? I don’t want to put words in your posts. Maybe you know of other posts or discussions I could read to become more knowledgeable in this area.
Maybe it is a concept where it is easy to tell what it is not but it is so foreign to this American culture that we won’t be sure what it is until we see it.
Thanks for being patient with me.
September 29th, 2006 at 3:44 am
We live in an area of Pennsylvania thick with Amish and Mennonites and just about every kind of Annabaptist denomination posssible. Our small start up church (reformed) strives to live out the covenental lifestyle of the people around us without the man made legalistic traps. In our church we have excommunicated Amish that share with us their experiences in their community. In addition we had, for about a year, a Bruderhof family attending. The Bruderhof and Hutterites are a whole different thread, but present a good, though extreme, model of community worth study. I do not endorse their form of community, but did learn much from them. Another study in community, or ghetto life, worth study would be the Jewish communities. Interestingly Hebrew has no word for “religion”. All these groups share one thing in common, making their beliefs the central point of their existence and a willingness of the individual to give up their independence when the good of the community is in question.
To incorporate the community concept into an existing church is a challenge that might be beyond human capabilities, because of the base concept upon which most evangelical churches are founded: Sundays and Wednesday nights and keep God and religion in the appropriate box where they will not interfere with MY life.
Church must flow out of community not community from church. Families that come together to worship our King must be drawn together out of a true willigness to sacrifice self for brothers or sisters, not just agreement with the Westminster or Baptist confessions. Although important these pale in comparison to true religion as expressed in the Bible. Perhaps a coincidence, but most Annabaptist communities have very weak confession knowledge and strong community and most reformed groups are strong in their confessions but weak in community. Is it possible to combine the two?
September 29th, 2006 at 4:37 am
Randy
I share your flustrations, thanks for the thoughts.
Justin
I think you summed it up pretty well in your paragraph! I was thinking this morning (while milking the girls) that when reading Paul’s epistles, one comes away with the idea that Paul just presupposes that Christians would be living together. I think that the answer here, lays in our multigenerational outlook. We have noticed the problem, we talk to our children about it, and hope that their childrens children can make it work. How? I don’t really know right now.
Ray
Thanks for the comments and insight. You bring up some very good points. I think that Jeff might well be on to something in his comment on how we veiw the church as well. Do you think that our traditional veiw of the “true Church” being an invisible spiritual thing and our veiw of the historic or “earthly Chuch” as at best a cheap imitation of the “real” thing might play into this as well.
Your last paragraph is SO True. I pray that the next reformation in the church leads to a greater understanding of those very thoughts.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:15 am
Another thing I thought of is that if we talk with our children about our yearning for an ‘ideal’ community, (with respect to the Holy Scriptures) they raise godly seed to help populate the locales, as the generations proceed, it stands to reason that eventually our isolated families will grow closer geographically and spiritually. This ‘community’ that we blog about will probably not happen over night but hopefully will withing a couple generations. In this quest we need to remember to keep Christ and His teaching central. Act fast Lord Jesus in teaching me to wait on you!
September 29th, 2006 at 6:40 am
Justin, it is just this long-term vision that is driving the “methods” of community-building here in SW Missouri. Since we believe the kingdom of God comes, not by armaments, but by the sacraments and God-honoring worship, the focus of our church has been on coming together as a worshipping body. We are spread over a distance with a diameter of probably 175 miles — most within a 75 mile diameter. However, the vision of community burns in our hearts, and member families are moving closer to the center from the fringes, and outside families moving in are trying to locate somewhere close to a family who is already involved. With many of the families having 6, 8, even 10 children, we see the distinct possibility that the gaps will be filled in with new covenant families forming out of existing ones, and eventually the church multiplying through new church plants. But it is starting with a multi-generational vision, and faithful worship and sacraments.
May God teach us to long for and work toward his kingdom coming on earth, and his will being done here even as it is in heaven.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:10 am
JFC,
It is exciting to read about the Spirit’s moving folks like you across the country to work toward this future. Even though it is a ways off it is still exciting.
Although my fellowship is small we are blessed I guess to only have about 20 miles maximum between members. My family used to live only two miles from another family and then we moved 12 miles away. That was an difficult decision to make. However, the Lord has recently brought another family into our fellowship that only lives 6 miles from us. We still order our live in such a way that for the most part we are too busy to get together except on Sunday.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Justin,
When I rant, I tend to despise the small things in favor of some grand vision. I think we all know we haven’t achieved the grand vision, but I do want to make it clear that the small things ARE important. The every now and then community you describe are essential and we should all do them.
Ray,
I couldn’t agree more with your observation that church flows out of community, not the other way. My efforts to make it happen the other way have continually been misunderstood and have failed to bear lasting fruit. I think to be more precise though, we should say that community flows out of economy. If we rely on our neighbors for the things we need, and they rely on us, it seems to me that that is a powerful incentive to love him and seek his general prosperity. Maybe building or being part of an interdependent, local network of producers is the way to go. Or at least a practical step in the direction of authentic community.
St. Paul, the highly trained, intellectual pharisee, said ‘knowledge puffs up, but love edifies’. Until the heirs of the reformation place a priority on love; over and above the love of knowledge, I don’t see any way true community can happen within reformed congregations. That’s not to say we don’t have some aspects of community (as Justin describes) only that our strength is in doctrine. We excell at explaining, defending, preaching the reformed faith. But if we truly believe our doctrine, we will also have a full-orbed love of the brethren that manifests itself as selflessness individually, and mutual dependence corporately. I just don’t see any way around this. Jesus said, they will know us by our love. He didn’t say they would know us by our doctrine. Corporate love, therefore, is an essential public witness, a sweet savor to draw the world, that they may eventually learn our doctrine. And, at bottom, the desire for community is a desire to know and love the brethren more and more. It is the desire to create this sweet aroma of the gospel, TOGETHER. It is encouraging to see so many here talking about it. And it’s really encouraging to hear about whole churches talking about it. (Hi, JFC!)
Scott, thanks for the thread.