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Holy Week resources and reflections

Intentional Community: A new kind of church planting

In corners of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) innovative church planters are creating worshipping communities far different from the cultures of typical aging PC(USA) congregations.

Discovering these spaces has been incredibly encouraging to me, a young pastor, as I sought a call within the bounds of the Book of Order that would be a good fit as a long-term ministry commitment. Yet in God’s funny ways, I now find myself even farther afield from those presbymergent corners. And I’m wondering if this new kind of church planting will even find its way into the Book of Order; perhaps as the church finds itself continually reforming!

Through a series of random, or likely providential, circumstances over the last few months, I now live in Pittsburgh, where Presbyterians are “most dense.” I am here to do something totally new in this place of traditional and innovative Presbyterianism: a Formation House for learning in intentional community as a way of life.

A PC(USA) couple, the wife is an elder at a presbymergent-flavored new church development, donated the funds for a down payment on a large multi-bedroom home in their struggling neighborhood. An oversight board of additional visionary folks in their neighborhood invited me to lead the effort in launching Formation House. Currently I am actively recruiting folks to apply online for our first annual cycle beginning in late August 2009 (shameless advertisement: if you know of anyone who may be a good fit for this experience, please encourage them to apply!). It is a relatively simple and inexpensive model for catalyzing fully devoted followers of Jesus.

 

The basic structure of life in Formation House harkens back to the ancient Benedictine model, ora et labora, pray and work. Several times a day the community gathers to pray the Psalms and spend time in intercessory prayer.  Then everyone is dispersed to a variety of work assignments throughout the Pittsburgh area. The unique ingredient of Formation House is the onsite mentoring, and nearby neighborhood support, provided to the participants.  This is not simply another intentional community of idealistic young adults.  Formation House is a place for discernment and development towards a long-term way of life in intentional community.

 

A hunger for community and New Monasticism

 

The concept of Formation House bubbled up from a number of formative streams. Part of the energy for this effort comes out of an increasing hunger for authentic community. It is my assumption that traditional expressions of Presbyterianism included geographic proximity to the church building and an intimacy of friendships formed over decades of being together. Sadly, fragmentation in many of today’s PC(USA) settings means that such community no longer easily exists for most in our churches. Brian McLaren, Emergent author and networker, helpfully outlines this challenge:

“Throwing a small-groups program at [the] hunger for community is like feeding an elephant Cheerios, one by one. What’s needed is a profound reorganization of our way of life, not a squeeze-another-hour-for-‘community’ into the week. … Perhaps many of our churches will become more like Catholic churches in the past, where the ideal parish had a few households where monks or nuns lived in community, practicing radical hospitality that would overflow to the community at large. Perhaps we’ll find that if even a few people in our churches practice this radical hospitality and generous community, their extraordinary fervency will warm us all and model new ways of life for us manic, transient, auto-driven denizens of bedroom non-communities.”

A major influence is what has come to be known as the New Monasticism movement, most widely promoted through the book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shane Claiborne.  Twelve Marks of a New Monasticism include such things as: commitment to a disciplined contemplative life; nurturing a common life among members of intentional community; humble submission to Christ’s body, the church; hospitality; reconciliation and peacemaking; sharing of economic resources; stewardship of God’s creation; and relocation to abandoned areas.

 Another alternative endeavor to check out is World Christian Discipleship, which is also starting up this fall in Pittsburgh (http://www.worldmissioninitiative.org/wcd).

These ideas have stirred the hearts of an increasing number of people through out the country. Yet it is not always clear how being drawn to these concepts can be translated to tangible starting points. Ministries such as Formation House are not an all-encompassing solution towards faithful Christian living. However, they can provide new arenas of foundational formation beyond current church planting initiatives, as funky as those already are.

Will there be a place in the Book of Order for us?  I have hope it will be so.

 

KAREN SLOAN is the prior of Formation House on Thomas Boulevard in Pittsburgh, and can be reached at flirtingwithmonasticism@gmail.com.

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