An Unexpected Turn of Events

The quick introduction to what's going on is in this first post. In the next couple of weeks, each of us will be taking turns sharing our perspective of how this came to be, and what it means for us. So be watching for that. I'll tell my story first. To be clear - this is Marc Schelske talking.

For me the path to this spot looks like this. I've been studying and thinking about Biblical community for a little more than ten years. For the past five years, since I became the lead pastor at Bridge City Community Church, I've been thinking about it, reading about it, dredging the Bible for anything related to it, as I seek direction for the future of the church I am so lucky to be a part of. In the past three months particularly, I've been digging into these ideas deeply. Along the way my heart and mind have been changed.

I am not a touchy-feely person, who thinks that we should abolish currency and all live on an organic farm singing kum-by-ya. I believe in self-determination, personal responsibility, and hard work. By personality, I'm someone who needs a lot of personal space. Relationships are hard work for me. It's easy for my energy and attention to go to projects and events and to-do lists. The idea of committing to a co-housing community would never have crossed my mind until recently. But my heart has been shaped in the past years and months, and this is where I find myself.

I am compelled that the calling of Jesus is a calling into a new kind of community. It's a culture unto itself, different by far than the prevailing culture of the world. And yet, I don't believe in a fortress mentality, or a naive utopia. I believe that the culture of the new community of Jesus is a culture that is about radical inclusion and committed intimacy. Radical inclusion says, "If you want to be on the journey with me, you are welcome. We will seek Jesus together." Committed intimacy says, "I will be here for you; I will help bear your burdens." A community that truly lived out these two things would be such an exception to our common experiences - both in and out of the church. In my church community this conviction has led us to shift our focus away from creating a complete roster of needs- and interest- based programs, and toward a model of inviting people to commit to to life together through the mechanism of small cell groups. Bridge City is five years into this transition. We're learning a lot, and it is having a powerful impact in people's lives.

As I've experienced and watched the cell process unfold in the past five years, I've been convinced that life in community is better than life outside. Even more amazing, I've grown in my trust of God's natural process for shaping people. I've found myself less needing to guide or even manipulate positive outcomes for people, and more able to simply trust what the Holy Spirit can do when people give God access, and stay in community regardless of how complicated or uncomfortable it can be. My own participation in a cell group has been deeply meaningful to me, and I remain fully committed to cell as a platform for helping us learn how to live in Biblical community together. It is, in my 15 years in pastoral ministry, the best model I've found yet for doing what I believe the Bible calls us to do.

While our current experiment isn't directly connected to cell, and it certainly isn't meant to replace or supplant it, it has been my experience in cells that has opened my heart to the possibility of living in community in a more full-time kind of way. For me the transition in my mind centered around two issues.

First, in the last five years my family has been much more intentional about being around people - both with our cell group and with other friendships. What I've found is that I am a better person when other people are around. It's easier to lean into my good intentions with other people not just in my life, but in my space. For example, I'm a better parent when other people are around. It's not that I'm trying to impress them. But somehow it changes the emotional tone of the space, and makes me more reflective about my response to my kids. I am more gentle, more careful, and more attentive - and my discipline is much more measured.

It seems to me that in our own homes, in the privacy of our family, we tend to feel like we've earned the right to "let our hair down." That means we come home from work and expect that we don't have to serve, or submit, or be unselfish. The result of this sense of entitlement in our own homes is that we very often treat the people that we love worse than we treat the strangers we interact with in the course of our day.

I've come to a place where this is not acceptable to me as a follower of Jesus. But at the same time, I still struggle with the feeling that I've served and served, and when I get home I want to just relax. For me, having others in the space I live, others who know who I want to be and what I struggle with, is a way to help me lean into who I want to be. It's a practical application of the "iron sharpening iron" principle.

Second, I've spent a good amount of time thinking about the importance of margins in my life. Margins are those extra spaces in your life. Extra financial resources, extra emotional energy, extra time. It's been my experience and my observation that a lot of times good people find themselves in a position where they just can't obey God's guidance because they have chosen to live their lives in a way where they have no margin. Most commonly, they live over-extended in their financial lives, and when God brings someone across their path who needs some help, they are unable to respond because they are already too far in debt. But this happens in every area of life. Families that over-schedule their children, and in the end are unable to be involved in community at a deep level because of all their activities. People who can't set good boundaries and use up all their emotional energy, and when someone comes into their lives who needs serious support, they have nothing to give. It seems to me that a part of obeying God is structuring my life in such a way that I have margin that enables me to respond to divine opportunities when they come up.

For me, choosing to try an intentional community household is about creating more margins. By consolidating the "overhead" of a household, all of the participants will have a higher standard of living but use less resources. That creates a margin financially. We expect that this will extend into other areas. Sharing the household responsibilities will make it less work for everyone. In a purposeful shared household the responsibilities of being a follower of Jesus can be shared by everyone. It's not just me reaching out to a friend in need. It's my whole household. If we find ourselves in a position to take someone in for a period of time, it's not just my family carrying the emotional load. It's the whole community. If we come across someone who needs financial help, it's something that can be spread across a number of budgets, rather than just one.

I don't know how this is going to turn out. That's why we are very clear that this is an experiment. I don't know if my expectations are right or fair. I don't know how smoothly things will go. I know that it's going to be hard at times. There's a good chance that I will offend the other people involved, or hurt their feelings - and I will have to work through the process of reconciliation. There's risk and uncertainty. But I know that along the way we will learn a lot about the nature of Biblical community, and how to navigate the complexities of healthy relationships.

So, you've heard about our little adventure?

Sometimes things don't happen in the order or with the pacing that we think best. There are times when things happen out of order and it's a bad sign. Other times, it happens because God is doing something unexpected. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. One of these is happening to us. We think it's a God thing.

The short version is this: The Schelske family and the Ouchida-Walsh family are buying a house. Actually, that's not quite true. It's factually correct, but the truth is that we're buying an experiment. We've gotten really excited in the past year about an idea. What would it look like to take practical, concrete steps to organize your life in such a way that you could actually follow the instructions of Jesus? What would it look like for normal people to set aside some of the cultural expectations they've been trying to live up to, and instead try and build a life where Biblical community is a normal every-day kind of thing?

Here's the long version. Over the course of the past years we've been learning about and studying Biblical community. It's happened through the conversations we've had in our church community, through a number of very compelling books, (too many to list here for now) and lots of discussions with friends, classmates, professors, and colleagues. The path to this moment for the Schelskes and for the Ouchida-Walshes looks different - and each of those people will be able to tell their own story in subsequent posts. In our own families we were contemplating what it might look like to take some practical steps to organize our lives a bit differently in order to be able to be more available to some of the things we believe God is calling us to do. A few months ago those conversations came out on the table and we learned that both of our families were thinking about the same kinds of things.

From there the conversation really took off. What might this look like? How could it benefit us? How could it help us serve others better? What would the obstacles and costs be? We began envisioning a shared household. Perhaps there would be a couple of host families, one or two other small family units, and the space for short-term guests. We imagined being in a neighborhood where we could get to know the people who lived around us, and find practical ways to serve and care for them. We thought about what it would take to responsibly create a more open household, where friends and people in our circle of influence would feel comfortable stopping by, where they would find a place of sanctuary in a busy chaotic world.

As a part of making these ideas more concrete we began looking at houses. At this point it was all about research. What kind of house would work for an endeavor like this? How big would it need to be? What kind of neighborhood would we be most likely to find it in? And of course - would it be something we would be able to afford at all? We saw quite a number of properties online and learned a lot about the kinds of things we needed to look for, and in the end we went and looked at a number of them. The main thing we discovered is that the size of house we needed for this experiment was very likely way out of our reach financially.

That's when we came across the Ruscliffe house, and where the situation got more complicated. At this point we were only researching - and had the expectation (at least I had the expectation) that we would have six months or a year more of brainstorming, researching and planning. The Ruscliffe house wasn't anything interesting on the outside. It was a very middle-of-the road, 1970s ranch. It was well built, but didn't really have much street appeal. But when we got inside we discovered that it had a fully finished basement giving it a total of 4500 square feet, and at a price that made it very unlikely that something like this would come around again.

We made an aggressive offer just to tie the property up for the weekend, to give us more time to think and pray and get counsel. The owners countered with a very reasonable response and we found ourselves in the position of very likely owning a house. Everyone agreed that we had more homework to do, but that this house could very likely be the one. We committed that we were willing to sacrifice the cost of our inspection, giving us another week or so to get counsel, pray, and have a lot of conversations about how this thing might work.

During the two weeks from the offer through the inspection, the Schelskes and Ouchida-Walshs and another potential participant spent hours in conversation. We sought out people who were doing similar things to learn from. We asked difficult questions. How would decisions be made? What decisions would be collaborative and what would be individual? How would a partnership agreement regarding the property work? How would we manage the balance between shared living and personal privacy? How would we keep our process open and transparent to our church community, so that we could have their input, wisdom and support?

Well, the inspection has happened and the house is in excellent shape. It looks very likely that in the next two weeks we will in fact become the owners of this property. In the meanwhile, we are continuing to define the shape of this community. We're getting good counsel, and have a lot of people praying for us. We're working hard to finish up the partnership agreement and the basic practices of the household. As we define these things we'll be posting most of them here, and as we have big conversations and learn lessons, we'll be posting them here as well.

This blog exists for three reasons. First, we want this community that we're building to be as transparent as is appropriate. We want our friends and family and church community to have access to the conversation, so they can understand what we're thinking, be comfortable with our process if possible, and have the opportunity to speak wisdom and guidance into our lives. Second, we are heading into this as an experiment. We don't believe this is a necessary step for every follower of Jesus. We're not doing this as a pilot program. It's just an attempt. It's an opportunity to try to put into practice some of the things that we've learned, or suspected, as we've studied and been compelled by the vision of the early church community in the New Testament. Because this is an experiment, we want to be very attentive to what we're learning. Third, most of us are technology nerds of some flavor and intensity, and for us that means that blogs are just cool.

FAQs

We get a lot of questions. Here's some of the basics. We'll be adding to this and updating it as we learn more and get more questions.

Q: So, who is involved in all this?

A: There are two families that are the hosts for the Ruscliffe Oikia. Daniel & Brittany Ouchida-Walsh, and Marc & Christina Schelske, along with their two children. At this location we think that we can accommodate a maximum of two other small family units - (a single person or a single parent and child.) As launch we have one of those spots filled. While we will also maintain a guest room for the purpose of having space for very short term guests, we are planning to spend the first 6 months to a year getting our feet under us in this new way of living before expanding to include any other people who share the household.

Q: Are you a commune?

A: Not really. There are a lot of different kinds of intentional community out there. Eco-villages, co-housing communities, residential land trusts, student co-ops, and housing cooperatives and all different kinds of intentional community. A commune is one particular form where the participants pool their financial resources to equally meet everyone's needs. The two host families of the Ruscliffe Oikia own the house together, and all the members of the household contribute to the maintenance of the house and to the grocery budget, but apart from that everyone has their own independent finances and budget, and make their own decisions about how and when to use their resources.

Q: So, what do you mean by "Intentional Community?"

A: The Fellowship of Intentional Communities, a national organization that supports and equips people for this kind of lifestyle has a great definition. They say: "An intentional community is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. The people may live together on a piece of rural land, in a suburban home, or in an urban neighborhood, and they may share a single residence or live in a cluster of dwellings." (Source)

Q: Are you a cult?

Umm.... no!

Q: Well, is this religious then?

Well, we're not sure what you mean when you say that, but it would be accurate to say that we are motivated to do this by spiritual reasons. Our understanding of what this will look like is informed deeply by our Christian heritage. The host families are all followers of Jesus, and one of the core reasons for this experiment is an attempt to do something concrete in our lives that allows us to be more available to respond to our understanding of Jesus' call in the New Testament. In addition, two of the participants are in pastoral ministry.

Start Here

So, you've heard about our little adventure? Heard a rumor? Saw something strange on Facebook? Wondering what's up with these people you had once considered thoughtful, balanced and wise? Well, you've come to the right place.

Since this is a blog the most recent post will always show up as the main page - and that may not be the best place to start, if you're trying to sort out what's going on with us. So, we're gathering all the relevant posts to get you up to speed right here on this page:

Read these posts for the best quick introduction to what we're doing and why.

The Introduction - our unexpected adventure.

How each of us came to this:

• Marc's Story
• Christina's Story
• Brittany's Story
• Dan's Story

Frequently Asked Questions

These will be updated periodically as we get new questions, and have new answers.

Our Purpose Document

Currently this is a "work in progress" document, as we clarify and get specific about what we are hoping to accomplish.

Our Guiding Principles (Version 1)

The Ruscliffe Oikia

An Experiment in Intentional Community

Purpose:
This is an experiment in intentional community. We are compelled by the calling of Biblical community. We have come to think that in many ways the life of a follower of Jesus can only be lived out in community of some kind. Many of the instructions we find in the Bible are simply undoable for a single individual; and yet in a community we are able to live these things out. We expect that by committing to do life together in the context of a shared household, we will have more margin to obey our calling as followers of Jesus, and a higher level of relational accountability to encourage us on that path.

As we lay out the specifics of how this community will work, we all agree that our experiment will be guided by these six principles we find in scripture and our Christian heritage:

Extended & Enriched Family
Followers of Jesus are no longer just members of their own blood family. They now belong to a larger family of people they often did not pick. In establishing a shared household we expect to be able to learn better how to live this out, working through the inevitable difficulties, and learning how to love each other and care for each other's best interests well. We also expect that in this kind of community all of our lives will be enriched by interacting more often and in a closer way with others.

Hospitality
It has long been an expression of God's grace as well as a practical outgrowth of a heart of service that Christian communities have practiced hospitality. This extends from sharing a simple meal with strangers to offering a safe place to stay for someone in need. We expect that in a shared household we will have the margin necessary to be able to safely and appropriately offer this kind of hospitality to friends and neighbors, as well as people God brings across our path.

Spiritual Rhythm
We realize that we are shaped by things we do often and repeatedly. This often happens "by accident." By choosing a rhythm for the practices we value, we are able to intentionally commit ourselves to being shaped by those things we value. This is visible throughout the history of the people of God, whose lives have been punctuated with "days and times" "sabbaths and holy days." In a shared household we can more easily commit to a spiritual rhythm that includes sabbath, scripture, prayer & worship, conversation & community discernment, communion and shared meals.

Encouragement to Grow
We have experienced that in our isolated family units it is very easy to set aside our good intentions of personal and spiritual growth. In our own private homes we can easily feel as if we don't need to live with high levels of integrity, service or love. As a result it is often the case that we treat our own family members worse than we treat strangers. We expect that in a purposeful shared household, we will all experience a higher level of motivation and encouragement to live as our best selves, and help each other do the same.

Caring for those Around Us in Need
We recognize that God's community has always been called to seek justice and to care for those who have not, who live in the margins of society. In choosing a purposeful shared household, we are taking steps to resist the temptation to "climb the ladder," instead stewarding our resources in such a way that we create a margin with which we can bless, serve and empower those around us with all areas of our personal resources - time, money, emotional energy, and space.

Creation Care
Humanity has been entrusted with God's Creation. Out of love for God and respect for what God has called good, we will do what we can to live sustainably, recognizing that God loves both Creation itself and the billions of people who depend on its health and fruitfulness for their survival. We expect that choosing to live in a purposeful shared household will allow us to use less resources to meet our needs than if we were living in separate households.

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Expected Implications:
Choosing to do life this way is a wide-reaching decision that will impact our lives in many ways. While we can't know what it will be like in every respect, there are some implications that we eagerly anticipate:

• As individuals and families we expect that we will have more margin in resources, in time and in emotional energy.
• We expect that it will be easier for us as a group to live in a way that is more sustainable, allowing us to live at a higher standard of living using less resources.
• We expect that any children who live in this community will develop positive relationships with a wider circle of caring adults who care for them
• We expect a higher level of relational accountability that will encourage our continued personal and spiritual growth, as well as our ability to navigate the complexities of healthy relationships.
• We expect that with more people committed to the process of the household, we will be able to sustain a more open household with respect to our neighbors, friends, and church community, than we would be able to do on our own.
• We expect that this experiment will be hard, that it will stretch and challenge us, and that we will learn a lot about ourselves, about each other, and about the nature of Biblical community.