Community & Co-Housing

Today I ate lunch in the lunch room at work, for the first time in months. Lately I've been one of the desk-eaters... the ones who just keep working and put food into their mouths when they have a spare second between phone calls, charting, home visits, and the various crises that occur on a regular basis. But today was different. I decided to sit down, eat lunch without my computer, and read the newspaper.

The front page immediately caught my eye as it had a headline about a new Co-Housing development in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage area of Vancouver.

You can read the full article here, but the Cole's Notes version is that a development proposal for Co-Housing has been put forward which hopes to build a 31 residential condominium building that would contain individual/separate condos with their own amenities but large common areas for cooking, eating together, laundry, offices, etc. They talk to a few people interested in this type of lifestyle, who express a desire to know their neighbours, to share life together.

What I read in between the lines: People are longing for community. People are realizing they need each other. People want to be known and know others. And it's people in VANCOUVER wanting this. A place that is one of the "most liveable cities" in the world, yet many people feel isolated and alone and pursue an individualistic lifestyle. I'm not trying to generalize. This obviously doesn't apply to everyone and all of Vancouver. But it's been my prayer that isolation, loneliness, despair would lift and that people would realize their need for God and community. I am encouraged by this article because it's showing that people are longing for community in some way, even if they can't fully articulate it and may not even be fully conscious of this need or desire.

I feel strongly in my Spirit that one of the keys for the Gospel to spread in Vancouver, for people to encounter God and his love is in the context of community. I have felt this for a while, and have the joy of seeing it happen in our own small group that meets every few weeks, as well as in our own home where we are embracing community living. God is on really on the move within small groups/community groups. He is using communities, however they may look, in a powerful way. In ways, I can't even comprehend or fully imagine.

It reminds me of Acts 2:46-48 where they met daily together to break bread, to eat together, and to Praise God while enjoying one another's company and favour. And daily people were being saved! This is how they did church for hundreds of years.

"The fullness of Christ will not come without Christians standing with each other in love."

- Francis Frangipane, The Three Battlegrounds

Let's live this. 

That's my heart right now.

..... And hey, what if half of the owners of this new Co-Housing development were Christians?

Community: We need one another!

Since my birthday back in February, I've felt God putting it on my heart to write more, particularly in the form of blogging.  I felt him say to begin by writing about community and what I've learned about it since I began "living in community" with some married friends of mine back in June of 2012. This could take multiple posts as there is quite the story of how we ended up living together, and it's a continual journey learning what living in community is really all about.

Currently I work as a home care nurse in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver, one of the "poorest postal codes" in Canada. I have seen a lot of suffering and brokenness, things I never could have imagined. I have also seen community that I didn't expect which is so beautiful. Yet I have also seen isolation at its worst.

I'm sure there are numerous studies about isolation and people's health, and how social support is a huge determinant of health. I'm convinced it's the most important! Anyway, that's just the nurse in me coming out right there. Lately I have encountered people through my job who are in some very tough, heart-wrenching circumstances without a lot of support and it's really driven this home for me: we need each other, we need community. Desperately.

No amount of money will buy you community. No amount of money will make you happy. Cute homes, good views, expensive clothes, nice cars... none of this amounts to much when it comes down to it. We need God, and we need each other. People long to be in community more than I think they even know! People long to be loved, to be known, to be heard, to be touched, to be seen. I'm realizing more and more that God created us to live in community with one another.

God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy. But he makes the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Psalm 68:6

I just love this verse! He places the lonely in families (community!). While I have wonderful parents, siblings and extended family, God has revamped and expanded my definition of family and placed me in one that is just right for this season in my life. I am a single woman, living away from immediate family and where I've grown up. Living alone was always an option I suppose, but not one that seemed right at this time. I can't say I was lonely, but let's be honest, loneliness is real life struggle whether you are single or not and isn't dependent on your living arrangements necessarily.

God has provided community, a family to me. I have the privilege of living together with a married couple and their precious baby (who wasn't born or even in the womb when we first moved in together!). Basically, we share life together. That means we have seen each other at our worst and best (which is humbling at the best of times). We enjoy sharing meals together, and we definitely laugh a lot. As a community we also take time to pray together. Is it easy all the time? Nope. But all of us are called to do life together in some form of community. The Bible encourages this - eating together, fellowship, praying/worshipping together.... Jesus instructs us to love one another, encourage one another and bear each others' burdens. The context of this? Community.

Regardless of where you are living, with whom you are living with and where you are at... what does community look like for you in this season, right now? There is really no set way this has to look, which is the beauty of it! God can work creatively in any circumstance to help us establish community. Sometimes, he brings it to us. Sometimes, we have to search it out. For me it was a combination. God provided people to live in community with, yet we longed for more since moving further away from our church community and we were able to start a small group of sorts with other Vancouverites who also "commuted" to church. Ask him what it looks look, how to get it, and what he has for you! We serve a God who cares for our every need, and knows about them before we even ask.