Demystifying Intentional Community
If you’re a Christian in the gen z or millennial age bracket, there’s a good chance that your eyes widened briefly at the mention of “intentional community” (also sometimes called “missional community”). And this for good reason—these days the term gets thrown around as the gold standard of pioneering Christianity, a return to the Acts Church, a middle finger to postmodern individualism, and everything in between.
But what is it? Honestly, I’ve been living in it three years, and I still don’t really know. But three years doing anything is enough time to get an okay grasp at it (just ask Jesus), and I’ve had enough experiences, made enough mistakes and yarned late into the night enough times to give a definition a good stab. I’ve had the joy and privilege of living in community with members of Blueprint Church in two different houses—we call them “Chapters”—over two years, and this year I live in a house with the Community of the Transfiguration.
One thing intentional community folks I’ve known seem to talk about all the time is the idea of “rhythms”—practices community members do together on a regular, mostly often weekly, basis. In Chapters, we pray as a community every weekday evening, have a night of hospitality where we invite people from all walks of life to share a meal together, have a weekly flat night where we learn, share, and grow together, have a weekly missional commitment such as volunteering at the Free Store, a movement of food redistribution and community in inner-city Wellington, and all attend the weekly church service. In Transfig it’s similar and different: we pray together every weekday morning, have a weekly whãnau night, have missional initiatives we participate in, and attend the weekly church service.
One thing I’ve realised, though, after being in two different intentional communities, is that the thing that defines intentional community isn’t the rhythms we do together. But instead of giving you my take on what does define it, I’m going to give you the take of my good friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer (at least, if he were still alive I’m sure we’d be great friends). In the 1930s, Bonhoeffer was part of an underground seminary training clergy in Nazi Germany. In this high stake environment, Bonhoeffer learned fast what made for a functional, loving, Godly community. He wrote all about it in his classic text on Christian community Life Together, and when I read the opening chapter, I was like, “This explains everything I have to say about intentional community, only better.”
So join me as I tag-team with Bonhoeffer and attempt to demystify intentional community in three points: (i) we are all in community whether we know it or not, (ii) community is a divine reality made possible through Jesus, and (iii) community is never what you expected it to be, but that is okay.
1. We’re all in Community
Let’s start big picture. God is Trinity, described in the Nicene Creed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Andrei Rublev has a beautiful and famous icon of this tri-personal God, which pictures the three members of the Trinity sitting together round a table. In the image they face each other, chatting and sharing food with one another. In many ways, the very essence of community. God is not a static individual but a dynamic community—multiple persons in relationship—and therefore when we talk to God, we are participating in this community with each of the persons of the Trinity.
If that all made enough sense, then the next step is realising that if that we are after the likeness of the God who is community, then community is naturally an intrinsic part of who each of us are. We are all made for community with one another. In other words, we are all made for connection, connection to everyone we meet and even to those we haven’t yet met. Every time we connect with another person, we are participating in the community that is in our God-given natures, which is the community that is the very nature of God. In other words, we are all in community with one another.
When we talk about intentional community, all we’re saying is that we know we’re already in community and we are being intentional about pursuing the sort of community that is modelled by God as Trinity.
2. Community is Made Possible Because of Jesus
Practically speaking, we all know that relationships are not easy. How are we meant to sustain this sort of community, especially when things are hard? Well, when Bonhoeffer explains how, he uses this awesome line:
“Christian community means community though Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this and none that is less than this” (p. 31).
Bonhoeffer explains that Christian community is only possible because of Jesus. He quotes Ephesians, “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations” (Eph 2:14-15a NIV).
There are many barriers we place between each other—barriers of mistrust, pride, fear, past hurts, or sin. These make it hard to be in relationship with each other, and certainly make it hard to be in intentional community with each other. Thankfully it’s not solely on us to solve this one. Jesus is the one who has destroyed all barriers between each of us, which he did on the Cross, “setting aside in his flesh” all the things between us.
The way we sustain community with each other is Jesus, and his death on the Cross. It really takes the pressure off, and also motivates me to work on my relationships with others knowing that Jesus has ultimately taken care of the walls that divide, so all I have to do is step towards the other person in faith. Bonhoeffer says this isn’t just idealism or a pipe dream. This is, in fact, a “divine reality” that each of us are invited to step into.
We know the love of Jesus is the love of the one who washes his disciples’ feet, a love that lays down his life for his friends. We know it is the love that gives and expects nothing in return. This love is the love we show one another in community, and the love we show to a world that longs for God’s kingdom of peace, justice and love to come. This is why intentional communities are often called “missional communities”—because the natural consequence of life together in God’s love is to share this love with the wider communities we find ourselves in. In Chapters, we share that love with the folk of central Wellington, for example at the Free Store or in playing handball on Cuba St on Wednesday evenings and inviting passers-by to join in (which often works!). This looks different in different contexts, but the main thing is that we share the love God has for us with the world around us, laying down our lives for those we love (John 15:13).
We also know that this love is deeply rooted in God’s love for us, the God who has loved us first (1 John 4:19). It is the love that abides in the vine of Christ’s love and goes away to quiet places to rest (John 15; Mark 6:31). Bonhoeffer talks about this love in his chapters on “The Day Together” and “The Day Alone”, two spaces necessary for life in intentional community. Practices of Sabbath and prayer especially have been important to me in cultivating an inner life, hidden in Christ with God, that both sustains the outer life and is also an end in itself.
3. Community is Never What You Expect It To Be
Bonhoeffer talks about everyone who enters community of any kind (and intentional community especially) as having certain expectations and hopes. Chief among these is the idea of “emotional community,” as he calls it.
I have seen countless people—including myself—who saw the dinner tables, yarns, and fun of intentional community, and expected it to be all just that: dinner tables, yarns, and fun. Intentional community always looks better than flatting/living with your parents/other previous living situations, and if you’re looking for mates, emotional fulfilment, and/or the healing of past relational wounds, it sounds like a great time!
At the end of the day, each of us is imperfect, and so none of us can perfectly love one another. Such a view of intentional community, which is natural and common, will leave you very disappointed.
The person who moves in with previous relationship issues will find their issues get triggered by the people in their new community. The person who moves in looking for friends will find there are nights where they still feel lonely. The person who moves in looking for fun will find that there is admin, there are conflicts and there are lots of times that are just plain boring. Even the person who moves in looking to advance God’s kingdom and “do mission” will find that lots of the time you’re not actually on the front lines, as Shane Claiborne writes, “Everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.”
Eventually, you just get disillusioned.
What this means is, as Wellington Bishop Justin Duckworth often says, is that you had an illusion to begin with. Bonhoeffer’s preference is that all such illusions get shattered as soon as possible, but this is often a painful process. Yet, I think it’s the grace of God that sometimes our illusions last long enough that we get to a space where we can cope with their being shattered.
God doesn’t promise any more in terms of community than what God can promise: a bunch of forgiven sinners who often don’t love each other very well, who together can look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter (Hebrews 12:2). The good news of intentional community is that every time we mess up, Jesus is there to reconcile us with one another if we will let him.
If this doesn’t sound like a particularly great deal, that’s okay. As someone who has spent three years in this scene, I can safely say that it’s the best news I’ve ever heard, so you might just have to take me at my word for this. It’s the kind of thing that might just have to be experienced to be believed.
If any of this excited you in any way, get talking to people in your area or further afield who are thinking along similar lines. If you live in Wellington or one of the other centres that has something intentional going on, have a think about joining something that is already working (I can promise it’s easier than starting something afresh with no prior knowledge!). If you don’t, get chatting to some folks who are already doing it elsewhere and could give insight on how to translate it into your context. Intentional community isn’t the be all and end all, and there are plenty of other legitimate ways to live out the Gospel of Jesus in our current context. But I personally have a soft spot for intentional community, and I owe a lot of the amazing highs (and lows!) to it. It’s certainly full of adventure, life, and, perhaps most importantly, hope.
Whether it’s in intentional community or through some other way, though, the call of Jesus is always the same:
“Come, follow Me.”
~
Etienne Wain is currently a law and economics student at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington and part of the Community of the Transfiguration.