Dig in Deep

In my last post, I made reference to the fact that God just put something right in front of us that we had been seeking for some time.

To put it simply, we’re making the move into intentional community, and we have invited our good friends Kevin and Faith Blackwell to come and live with us. They are excited about it, and will be moving in this Friday.

When we bought our current home, we were looking for a house that fit a lot of criteria. But two of the things we were looking for was a place that would be ideal for hosting a house church, and a place where we could pursue community in a more direct way. We had two options in that regard. The fourth bedroom in our house is off of the kitchen and has its own private bath. We also have a huge basement that is still mostly unfinished and has lots of windows – there is plenty of space that is ideal for an apartment.

We learned a couple of weeks ago that Kevin and Faith were going to be moving back up this way, and into a less than desirable situation. Amy and I were already making plans to move the kids’ bedrooms around and free up the fourth bedroom. So we brought up the conversation, and Kevin and Faith were very excited about the opportunity. We laid out two options – we could work towards finishing out an apartment where they’d have their own space, or we could have them move into the main level and share the kitchen and living spaces with us.

Without really any question, all of us were in agreement that we wanted to share the space. Our house is really too big for just one family, anyway.

This is really exciting to us for several reasons. First of all, Kevin and Faith are very good friends of ours. I first met Kevin nearly eight years ago, at Faith Community Church, where he stepped up as our main drummer there. We played together there for five years or so, but more than that, we shared a lot in planning, dreaming, and working in ministry.

Kevin and Faith have always been great with our kids, and our kids have always loved Kevin and Faith, as well. For those keeping track, Odie spent some time with Kevin and Faith, too.

There are some practical reasons why sharing a house with others make sense. Sharing groceries, utilities, appliances, etc., makes the cost of living a little less for us all. Sharing the tasks of cooking, cleaning, etc., means less work for any one person overall.

More than that, though, are the spiritual and relational benefits of being more connected in day-to-day life. We have seen, through other members of my family who are doing similar things, the joys and struggles that accompany this kind of living. In marriage, your closeness reveals flaws in your character and is supposed to sharpen you and move your further towards righteousness. We all fully expect to experience each other’s good and bad times, and we feel that we already have the strong friendship in place to help us weather the storms that will come.

We are blessed to know others living this way who can help us navigate the options of how to share groceries, how to handle rent, how to deal with noise, kids, etc. Each situation is different, though, so we have to rely on God to connect us and lead the way. We would appreciate your prayers as we begin this.

Of course, many people simply won’t understand why we would choose to do this. Many assume that it is simply to help some friends out, as a temporary situation – Kevin lost his job at Circuit City, and is looking for a job, by the way. While we would have been willing to help out friends on a short-term basis, that’s not an accurate summary of what this is about. We are setting this up, quite intentionally, to last beyond just the “helping a friend out” stage. I think for many people it is very difficult to understand why we would be willing to give up our “private” spaces and share it with another family. Simply put – I believe God is glorified when we seek to form deeper communities with each other, and deeper commitment to each other. We are also very excited to see how God will shape us through this phase of our lives.