As I write I’m sitting on my futon mattress fold in half with piles of stuff all around me, in a living room of a new apartment. In the bedroom Dawn, Avery and Roman are sleeping, and Bryan is at the coffee shop working. Our community has begun. It really started two weeks ago when we moved Bryan and Dawn and the kiddos from their apartment into my two bedroom apartment (minus Mindy who is chilling in Minnesota with her family).
Thursday night our community grew. Daniel, Josh and Chris all agreed to join our experiment. What does this whole thing truly mean? I couldn’t tell you. There will be nine people attempting to live together, to be intentional about how we live together and to share, challenge, encourage and grow with one another. We never sat down and wrote out a plan for what we are trying to accomplish, we didn’t have any specific discussions (yet) about goals, rules, visions. What we share is a conviction of living out this faith and trying to follow the ways of Jesus. It’s going to be interesting to see what that looks like.
Let me explain briefly the space that we will be living in (pictures to come soon). We will be renting two units of a tripleplex (like a duplex only bigger). In the larger one Bryan and Dawn and the kids will take two connected rooms. Mindy and I will have a section of the upstairs in that same unit. The living room, kitchen and a portion of the upstairs will be common space for all to use. The second unit is a small two bedroom unit where the three guys will share the available rooms. The living room and kitchen in that area will serve as some other function of the house. The goal will be for these two units to be shared freely and not to be disconnected in anyway.
One of my readers here mentioned that they are very interested in what we are doing and hoped that I would be open and honest about the experience. Let me acknowledge that I will make every effort to be open and honest in what I write. However, I will not use that honesty as an excuse to be in any way negative concerning others. If that means at times you do not get the full picture, then so be it. I will certainly share about the difficult experiences and the tensions that arise, but I will not do so at the expense of any community member. I hope I am clear about my intentions and I hope you find what I write about this experiment enjoyable.
I can’t speak for others, but I will share more soon about why I feel that this communal living is an important and worthwhile endeavor.