COMMUNITY MEANS EVERY PERSON PARTICIPATING IN THE LIFE OF THE HOUSE

By now the house has a bit of a life of its own as we have settled into some natural rhythms and practices. We meet on a set night to discuss house matters and make decisions together. We gather each Sunday for reflection and prayer. We each have our nights where we make sure we're home to spend time with the young people in our care and share dinner with them. Having said that there's been a lot that has gone into getting the initiative off the ground and even now there are key areas to not only keep on top of but to see that we keep growing in these areas, using our God-given skills, innovation and imagination. We see these each of these areas as a shared responsibility but we're currently working towards matching people up with roles to oversee as part of the house. We see the following as important areas to maintain and develop:

Community care - ensuring that as a community we're looking out for each other, that we are making space for rest and fun and closer relationships.
Finance and property - making sure that money is coming in and out in an appropriate manner, that the house itself is being looked after properly and our relationship with the real estate agents is being nurtured.
Mission initiatives - being committed to using our gifts and passions to go and bless people and places that God calls us to.
Discipleship - ensuring that we are growing in our faith, letting go of things that don't belong, learning to hear from God more and more
Youth Support - making sure that the young people in our care are supported, safe and feeling at home as they work towards independent living.
Networking and partnerships - building important relationships with those who can strengthen and empower the vision of the house.
Hospitality - creating a genuinely inviting space for people in our homes, in our lives with food, drink, laughter, kindness and celebration.

We make decisions prayerfully and thoughtfully together. We recognise that autonomy creates a satisfied minority at odds with a dissatisfied majority whereas democracy creates a satisfied majority at odds with a dissatisfied minority. We believe that it is only through consensus and every one participating in the decisions of the house that true community can be created. No individual runs the shop. This seems to us to be the best possible environment for encouraging creativity and imagination, initiative and innovation, nurturing and unleashing gifts and passions, taking responsibility and developing leadership.

Pray that we'd continue to love and serve each other in the house in all the areas that we need to attend to, that God would give us inspiration and energy and that as we make decisions together we'd do so in the most loving and faithful ways.

COMMUNITY MEANS RESPECT FOR THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF PEOPLE IN A GROUP

Often with great curiosity people ask me what it is that holds the group together. They want to know what it is that will enable us to stick together and care for young people in the house over the long haul. Sometimes people will ask straight out if this is a ‘Christian thing' – and who knows exactly what people mean when they say something like that - but I hope on some level it’s a broader recognition that followers of Jesus are to seek meaningful connections with those who are disadvantaged in society. What holds us together is a shared hope in the dream that God has for this world, a hope that leaves us restless about the notion of sitting back and doing nothing at all. And for us to be able to do anything at all we need to come together. Partly we are bound together through the recognition that we need each other, that we are incomplete in and of ourselves and only truly reflect the image of God when we are in relationship with others.

As we share life together we recognise the importance of:

• Having a common goal/ethos – as a group we’re guided by a common purpose and identity that shapes the way we operate and ensures that we don’t drift too far from what we know to be good and true. We seek to follow Jesus at all costs and lay down our counter-agendas.
• The willingness to co-exist – commitment is crucial, when withdrawing from community remains an ever present option we adopt a real willingness to hang in there when things get rough.
• Diversity in Unity – while we place a high importance on protecting the unity of the group, within that unity must be a genuine freedom to be different.
• Equality – despite our differences - our gifts, experiences, resources and so on - we're all in the same boat, eat at the same table. This critiques our efforts to establish hierarchy or pecking order.

Pray that we'd hold tight to what we know we are called to, that we'd have the courage to hang in there with each other at all times, that we would value the unity that we have as a community without alienating individuals in the process.

COMMUNITY MEANS HAVING A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WELFARE OF EACH PERSON IN THE GROUP

“Those who love community destroy community, those who love people build community” (Bonhoeffer)

From the beginning we recognised that for all the ways things could blow up in our collective faces, if we managed to draw nearer to God in our walk with him then it would all be worth it. It was apparent to us that the group exists to help people grow as people. For all the grand visions we have it is people that matter. If people are becoming burnt-out, over-burdened casualties of some greater mission then we have missed the point. So part of what community means to us is that individuals are cared for, looked out for, and that we have a sense of responsibility for each other. We think of the story of the lost sheep in Luke 15 where Jesus hints at God's concern for the individual even at the expense of the broader community. People matter. Some of the things we seek to make central to our life in the house are:

• Grace - Freedom to disappoint, to let down, to follow God at all costs
• Connectedness – seeking and creating genuine relationships. Only when people are actually remembered,acknowledged and recognised as people do they feel part of a group.
• Authenticity – having openness, honesty, grace, providing a place where people can be heard
• Blessing – encouraging and lifting each other up, letting our words be gift
• Rest and play - enjoying each others company and ensuring that the community does not become all-consuming, exhausting or wearisome

Pray that we'd love like our lives depended upon it, that no-one would be slipping through the gaps, that there would be a sense of vulnerability with one another and that we would help each to draw nearer to the love of God, that we would sing, laugh, dance, delight.

COMMUNITY MEANS CREATING A SAFE SPACE

Something we've been doing a lot together over the last four months or so is exploring what community means to us, the type of community we sense God is calling us into. And though this is something that we will no doubt have a far greater appreciation of over time, here's the start of some reflections that we feel are central to who we are and what we're about.

COMMUNITY AS A SAFE PLACE

• A place where hostility is confronted and turned into hospitality
• Creating a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy
• Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find their own - offering space where change can take place
• The cost of our friendship is not people’s souls

We suspect that we'll know we're on the right track when there is a real sense of acceptance and forgiveness – freedom to be, freedom to make mistakes, recognition that we are weak at times and incomplete in and of ourselves.

The key we feel is respect, eyes that recognise the image of God in all people. Pray that we'd see ourselves and others through the eyes of God (like in the Rabbi's Gift).