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.