A couple of weeks ago, Duane and Marcia, a few friends partnering with Kent Smith in the MRNA program asked if they could come over to talk. Katrina and I weren't sure exactly what for, but we've come to love them over this past year, so we were eager to have them over.

It wasn't at all what I expected when they asked us to move in with them. "You want us to do WHAT?" I was honored, and yet immediately skeptical. "Do they think we can't live in our own house?" flashed through my mind. As they explained their invitation, I came to see what an awesome opportunity this might be.

The Missionary Residency for North America was originally dreamed up to be just what it sounds like: a residency program. Kent, Karen, Duane, Marcia, and the other ACU GST faculty who helped shape the program were hoping that students would actually live on location with the professors, eating breakfast together, shooting hoops together…you name it; the sort of "communal living" you read about in the 60's and 70's.

Only this type of living is based on the Gospel. Like I wrote in my last post, I believe that the Gospel is not just a proposition (a list of facts and statements to agree or disagree with), it is a visible, tangible LIFE. Anytime the Gospel is proclaimed, there is flesh and bones surrounding it. In our American culture, as in all cultures, the Gospel finds its meaning in the story of Jesus Christ crucified. However, the American Gospel in our generation will clothe itself in profoundly communal realities. The American workforce coming home to a giant, empty, cluttered house teeters on the brink of exhaustion. We can no longer do it on our own.

My wife (I like to use the term "my wife" when she does something totally awesome) sensed the innate need for communion and fellowship in our culture almost as soon as we entered it as adults (as we were leaving the "college life"). She has since been impressing on me her desire to find another family to join with in simply living life together. It has been her dream that our family would be communally intertwined in our Christian Mission with others. (For a great scholarly book on a nearby topic, check out Roger Gehring's House Church and Mission.)

As we move in together, I pray that our love might overflow onto the loneliness of those around us. I pray that our friends would enter our home and experience what it means to "die to self" as they see our two families serve in the name of Christ. I pray that our victory would be in our living into the Gospel of Christ, and that it would find its place in the hearts of those who are in proximity to us.

This is just one way God is saving his people in North America.

Last 5 posts by Mark

• Brain Dump - October 8th, 2008
• God is Wholly - October 2nd, 2008

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Communal Living, Conversations, Culture, MRNA, Marriage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.