This is a 3-part article I wrote about the possibility of living life a little differently.  It was stimulated from a book that I read.  I would love to hear your thoughts (agreement, disagreement, problems with, insights, experiences, etc) regarding it, if you manage to read the whole thing!

Part I

When I first heard the phrase “monastic community” I pictured a group of celibate monks chanting prayers together.  I’m not celibate, nor am I a monk, and therefore this type of community seemed out-of-the-question.  Then I discovered what monastic communities looked outside of the Roman Catholic versions of them – monasteries that were for everyone.  Then I began to ask myself, what would it look like to live a monastic community within the context of the greater Seattle metropolitan area?  What would it mean to develop a monastery-like community in Everett or in Mill Creek?  What would life look like?  What could life look like?

I just finished reading a book entitled The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity can reach the West…Again, and needless to say it has caused some wheels to turn in my mind – of course if you know me then you understand how little it takes to do that!  In broad summary (don’t settle for summary as the book is worth the read) George G. Hunter  III presents the model of Christian belief, evangelism, communication, and lifestyle that the apostle Patrick (whom we know as “St. Patrick of Ireland”), and others like him used to reach the Celtic tribes of Ireland with the message of Jesus.  Basically, Hunter’s observation is that since Patrick not only “converted” pretty much the entire island of Ireland to Christianity in one generation, but it was a conversion that lasted and impacted not only their own culture but the cultures around them, then perhaps there is value in his model of ministry that we could learn from!

So what was the model of ministry, the “way of being and doing church”?  They would live in their own “village within the village” in very intentional ways.  Their lives were very spiritual and community focused, with a 5-fold structure of experiences binding and challenging people within the monastic community.  The five folds were:

1. Voluntary periods of solitary isolation
2. Communicating with a “soul friend” – a peer with whom you were vulnerable and accountable (to whom you confessed and who supported and challenged you)
3. Small group interaction (groups of 10 or less) led by a devoted disciple of Jesus
4. Participation in “common life” (meals, work, learning, bible recitation, prayers, and communal worship)
5. Ministry and witness to non-Christians (through small group, soul friend, or communal life)

As they lived an obviously different lifestyle they began to engage the community around them by welcoming them into fellowship and beginning conversations, believing firmly that community must first be established, fellowship experienced, and from that place conversations of faith will begin.  It was observed that over time interested individuals would discover that they in fact actually believed the teachings and the faith of the community around them.

As seekers spent time with a Celtic Christian community, they typically found themselves believing what the Christians taught.  Indeed, the Celtic Christians undoubtedly discovered that the presence of seekers observing them for “the authentic sign” provided an additional incentive for living faithful lives.

In other words they understood that, “belonging comes before believing.”

This concept of community, of intentionality, of a demonstrated different way of living based out of deep seeded beliefs is incredibly intriguing to me.  I was a little disappointed to find that Hunter wrote later in the book,

The two most prominent Celtic approaches to evangelization – a monastic community welcoming seekers and guests and teams from the monastic community visiting settlements for weeks or months – might, at first blush, seem unavailable to churches today.  None of us live in Celtic monastic communities, and it is not vocationally possible for most of us to relocate in teams for blocks of time.  This is a case, however, in which the specific models cannot be replicated, but the principles can be applied in new relevant ways.

Why simply swipe over this and eliminate it from possibility?  Is that to say that the Celtic Christian evangelists did what they did with no cost to themselves, and because our cost is too high, we therefore cannot possibly imagine doing the same thing the same way?  Why not?   Just because we do not currently live in monastic communities or live lifestyles that allow blocks of time for evangelism does not mean that we should not live that way. Before we simply diminish a modern-day monastic community established after the Celtic monastic communities, let us first consider what it might look life if attempted!

Part II

Why simply wipe out modern-day monastic communities from possibility simply because our lifestyles potentially look very different today than they did a thousand years ago? I do not think that a monastic lifestyle was a normal expression of life to anyone until they joined one!  Perhaps there was more in the Celtic or Roman culture that facilitated this type of community, but it was definitely not the standard lifestyle of the day, and therefore meant change, and choices for everyone – even then. Therefore, just because we do not currently live in monastic communities or live lifestyles that allow blocks of time for evangelism does not mean that we should not live that way. Before we simply dismiss modern-day monastic communities from the realm of possibilities, let us first consider what it might look life if attempted!

Let us explore how it would look to live in a monastery-like community.  Celtic Christians did not retreat from society to create solitude and secrecy, but instead went to the places where people were – they went to the villages and towns.  But instead of simply living intermingled with them, they chose, as teams, as groups of 10 or more people, to live together in a village-within-a-village.  They had walls around their monastery – not to keep people out, but to denote something different, a break from the culture.  Within their community there were homes of hospitality where guests were welcomed in and cared for.  There were certain individuals within the monastery who were responsible for welcoming and taking care of guests.  Meals were shared communally, as were many forms of prayer and worship.  Perhaps building homes and putting walls around them is not incredible feasible in our context today, but why couldn’t we gather together 10 families, couples, or individuals and move into an apartment complex together?  Or into a new housing development?

The way the church often looks now is that there is a single Christian family living in the midst of an apartment complex, or in a cul-de-sac, but it is difficult to live a different kind of community independent of others being in your community!  What if five families moved together into a cul-de-sac and chose to live life differently together?  What if five or ten couples moved into an apartment complex and chose to live life differently together?  Wouldn’t this be the beginning of a modern-day monastic community?

Now let us take a moment and explore the possibilities of what life could look like today in a way that encapsulates the Celtic Christian’s five-fold approach to life.  To refresh our memory, these folds are: 1 – voluntary periods of solitary isolation, 2 – communicating with a “soul friend” – a peer with whom you were vulnerable and accountable (to whom you confessed and who supported and challenged you), 3. small group interaction (groups of 10 or less) led by a devoted disciple of Jesus, 4 – participation in “common life” (meals, work, learning, bible recitation, prayers, and communal worship), and 5 – ministry and witness to non-Christians (through small group, soul friend, or communal life).

So five families move into cul-de-sac together, determined to live life in a communal way, not just as neighbors, but as a church, as the family of God, and as one unit.  They decide that as an intentional community there are a few things that are important to them. They decide on certain “expected” practices of: honest friendship (where confession, encouragement, and correction occur in a safe relationship); small groups (where together they are learning how to better follow Jesus – if there are only 5 families, it may simply be one small group); communal activities (meals – maybe just dinners, daily worship and prayer times, hospitality to strangers, bible story sharing, etc); and spiritual disciplines (such a silence and solitude).

It may sound complicated and difficult, but it definitely doesn’t sound impossible!  It may look a whole lot different than Celtic monastic life, but maybe that’s ok.

Part III

Having thought through how a modern-day monastic community might look, I am left with two questions: what would be the point of living life this way, and how would this type of community impact culturally expected aspects of life (work, finances, children, school, marriage, church, etc)?

Why would anyone want to live this way?  What’s the point?  Well, the point for St. Patrick and his people was to bring Jesus to Ireland, to live in such a way that those around them watch, wonder about, and join in.  How can the point be any different for us than to live in such a way that invites others to join in our community and eventually find themselves believe what we believe because they see the truth through our lives. If the Christian church in the United States was living consistently this way already, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but instead we find the very real need for a model of life that enables this to happen!  Let us remember that using this model, St. Patrick was able to change the culture of Ireland in just one generation.  That is an incredible accomplishment.  So the possibility of a model of living that can lead to the changing of our culture in a generation is worth considering.  It could be that there are other models of life that could accomplish the same thing.  If that is the case then let us acknowledge, applaud, and participate in them to see our communities reached with the redemption of the kingdom of Jesus Christ!

What would be the implications of this type of lifestyle on many aspects of life that typically engage in (this is not to say that the practice of that behavior is right or wrong to begin with)?

Well, life would definitely look different.  Perhaps the biggest impact on life is the use of time – and this impacts everything else.  The way the monastic communities of Ireland functioned were time-intensive.  Communal times of prayer and worship, of serving, of hospitality, and solitude severely cut into work hours.  If this type of lifestyle requires more time, then work must be diminished and this in turn will impact finances, financial security, and person feelings of self-worth (for those who allow finances to impact their personal identity).  The intentional communities of Ireland functioned far more like what it sounds like the Acts church did – they held all their resources in common, shared life together, and met the needs of each other and of the community together.

So living this way would require living on less.  But if we were to live together, wouldn’t we need less?  Think of how many fewer cars we would need if we became focused on our communities.  Think of how much less food we would buy if we had community gardens to grow our own.  Think of how much less we would pay for child-care and day-care if we were living in communities that valued children and worked together to raise them.  Maybe that’s just the tip of the ice-burg.

Ultimately, for there to be a group of Christians in the United States who desired to live this way, it would take a drastic change in lifestyle, and a re-structuring of values.  Maybe that’s not all that bad of an idea.  Difficult, yes.  Most definitely.  But not impossible.  Maybe even good.

I’m not making some claim that all Christians in America need to begin living this way, but I’m just inviting you to begin thinking about this.  What if, when you begin to consider buying a house, or moving to a new city, or changing neighborhoods, you invited ten other people to consider it with you?

How much would we impact our communities if we had actual pockets of Christians living an alternative lifestyle.  Christians in America are invisible.  Maybe we say something about morality, or vote by different standards (not always God’s standards), or speak with a little less vulgarity.  But what if we stood out because we lived together and we lived different!?  How much greater of an impact could we have!

Think about it.  And let me know what you think.