Living in Community

2010, June 30

As many of you know, we live in a small home that is on a larger property where the family Amador Barrera lives – family of mom, dad, 5 kids, and 8 foster children. Behind the “large house” where they live is where we are constructing the school and hopefully, one day, a guest home. The long term plan is for us to live in the guest home and convert the home where we now live into the permanent medical clinic. It’s well situated for a clinic, being on the main street.

We, the Kellys, have 4 kids and both come from fairly large families. However, this is our first real experience of living in community – not communal living, as we have our own home, but definitely living in community. We often share meals, watch soccer together, and the kids feel comfortable with being with us and coming to our home, go places together, and pray together.

I was concerned about entering into this at first, not only because of my being somewhat of a loner, but also because of the cultural differences, one of them being that Americans value their personal space more than most. We are very fortunate that the family we live with is very flexible and relational and at the same time understanding of one’s own space.

I'm not saying that community living is necessary for everyone, but as usual, I am learning a few lessons from our experience and wanted to share them with y'all:
1. Life is meant to be lived with others. Christianity is not an activity we do
    with others twice a week but a life that we live daily.
2. When I live in community, God has a chance to form me easier. This is why
    some people only go to a church until people get to know them, then “The
    Lord moves them on”. This is also why small home groups are definitely
    important in a Christian’s development. Chuck Missler claims that people
    who participate whole heartedly in home groups always mature
    faster in the Lord.
3. The natural human tendency is to run when the Lord, through relations with
    others, reveals something ugly in us, but as we learn to run towards God and
    not from Him, and let life,situations, and relationships form us, we are
    better prepared for our purposes in life. One of my favorite verses is in
    Jeremiah where God told the Israelites “And they have turned to Me the
    back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching
    them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction”.

While I am far from the mature Christian that God wants, I want to whole-heartedly throw myself in the process. I encourage each of you to follow God, enter into relationship with others, and grow. Although one becomes a Christian by himself, asking Jesus into his/her heart, he only grows in relationship to others. May God richly bless you in your process.