The "Experiment"

Before starting to write this entry we had to look back to see the last time we checked in because it had clearly been a while.  Fittingly, it has been almost 2 months since Amanda wrote about the amazing experience we had shared during Easter week.  The concept of living like “He is risen” is something we walked away from that week earnestly desiring to understand more.  That week there was a seed planted in us that God has been growing every day since. 

The fruit of that seed I believe can be summed up in the word restoration.  If you follow the movement in the modern church its undeniable that there is a theme running through the hearts and minds of its leaders that our generation is one that longs to be defined by restoration.  You can hear it in the yearning voices of leaders like Francis Chan, Mike Eerie and John Piper and you can see it in the “radical” lives of other like David Platt, Gabe Lyons and Shane Claireborne.  The Lord is rising up his people to restore the image of His Church that has been marred by hypocrisy and replace that image with one of love, selflessness, service, grace, mercy, joy, peace and restoration.  He is calling us to restore His image more with our lives and less with our words. 

I wonder sometimes how heavily we feel the burden of being an image bearer of Christ?  For Amanda and me, we have felt the Lord pushing us towards understanding what it means to live as image bearers of the one true God.  That pushing has come in the form of many different things from the above mentioned church leaders, to our amazing community of friends and family to the truly inspiring church home we have found in Rock Harbor (www.rockharbor.org).   One of the biggest prayers we have lifted up since we got married was for a community of fellow believers that we could rely on for continued support and sharpening. 

Gabe Lyons, author of the book Next Christians, says this about the role of community amongst the next generation of believers:

          “In stark contrast to today’s social norms, the next Christians crave selfless, life-giving community.  Like-minded individuals are assembling into affirming communities everywhere, and the next Christians are often at the helm.  Intentional relationships define them.  In essence, they are restoring community to its original place in culture.  These next Christians seem to recognize the irreplaceable role community plays in how we function as healthy citizens, and especially as Christians.  As a result, they haven’t bought the lie that individualism promises a better, more fulfilled life.  They know that being grounded can’t happen without a community of friends.  They are people committed to experiencing life together, not just by saying nice words but engaging in the hard realities of loving, grieving, serving and suffering with one another.”

This thought echoes so much of what Amanda and I had been thinking as we began to pray for a community to surround us as we began our marriage.  Each of us knew what a vital role our individual communities of friends had played in supporting us through our lives to this point and now we began desiring to share in a “life-giving” community together.  Nine months after we began that prayer, I can sit here today and tell you that God has done “immeasurably more than we could {have} ever asked or imagined” (Ephesians 3:20).  We have been blessed with an eclectic, spirited, selfless, passionate group of friends that have pushed us further in our faith than we have ever been before.  Together we are pursuing what it means to live a life “no longer for ourselves but for him who died for us and has risen again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).  As we sought after this goal, slowly but surely, God revealed to us areas where we had set up idols in our lives. 

One topic that constantly came up in conversation more than any other (just as in the bible) was money.  As young married couples you are bombarded with the message that it is so important to develop financial security.  You are led to believe that you need to have a solid 401k, at least 3 month’s salary in savings, and own a home as soon as possible.  Initially there is no doubt that Amanda and I felt many of those same pressures.  Now don’t get me wrong those things aren’t bad things, but what is harmful is when you become slave to them and your dependence on God is replaced with a dangerous self-reliance.  As a group we tangled with the idea that God may really have something completely different for us as believers than the American Dream.  Out of those conversations was born a desire to fight the deadly consumer mindset that has infected so much of the church community.  Our dependence upon our things (our IPhones, cars, houses, clothes, etc.) is more obvious now than ever before in history.  David Platt author of the book Radical even goes so far as to state that he believes that the next generation of the church will look back on the consumer culture within the church today much like we look at slavery in the church in generations past.  Now that is a strong statement, but every time a church builds a multi-million dollar building while members of its congregations suffer in debt, hurt or homelessness it becomes more and more true!   

All this lead us one Thursday night into a discussion about living in community.  Most of us had read Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claireborne and thought, “man that community seems beautiful” and a few of us even knew couples that were so “crazy” and “weird” that they had actually moved in together.  We weighed the pros (saving money, accountability, less reliance on things, additional support in hardship, ability to provide greater care to others, prayer etc. etc.) and cons, shared our opinions, prayed and then left just like we did every other Thursday night.  Nothing happened, or so we thought… 

Within our group are a couple by the name of Dustin and Brooke Armer.  Dustin is a bio-medical engineer from Michigan that has a childlike playfulness that is balanced beautifully with a fiery passion for the name of Jesus.  Brooke is a first grade teacher at St. Mary’s Christian School and embodies everything you would hope your son or daughter’s 1^st grade teacher to be.  She is warm, kind, articulate, full of life, joy and Jesus.  They were there that night that we started the conversation about community and God pushed Dustin over the edge first.  Brooke would tell you that Dustin is pretty regularly throwing out “radical Christian ideas” for them to pray over and communal living probably fell somewhere between living on 1/10 your income and moving to Uganda.  But this time it was different, God was speaking clearly to them both. 

So, about a week after that Thursday night we got a call from Brooke and Dustin inviting us over for Dinner.  (Important note: Amanda and I had been in the midst of a search for a new apartment, our lease was set to end in 2 weeks, and we had been to probably 50 places in search of more space for less money.  Looking back that search was a painful process for us, nothing felt right, we fought over what we wanted and couldn’t agree on any place, it’s so obvious now why.)  We enjoyed dinner and then sat down on the couch in the living room.  I remember very clearly right before they spoke Dustin looked over at Brooke and Brooke gave a small confirming nod as if to say, “I’m with you husband,” and then they invited us to move in with them.  We listened to their reasoning, thanked them for even considering us friends worth living with, told them we would pray about it and get back to them.  We got in the car that night and I think for both of us we knew the answer would be yes, but we took time to pray, talk with friends, family and each other. 

During that time I was reading Radical (the book I mentioned above) and in the last chapter David Platt challenges the reader to take part in an experiment and in one year pray for the entire world, read the entire bible, sacrifice your money for a specific purpose, spend time in another context and commit your life to multiplying community.  He says this about his experiment:

            “So I challenge you to an experiment.  I dare you to test the claims contained in the gospel, maybe in a way you have never done before.  I invite you to see if radical obedience to the commands of Christ is more meaningful, more fulfilling, and more gratifying than the American Dream.  And I guarantee that if you complete this experiment, you will possess an insatiable desire to spend the rest of your life in radical abandonment to Christ for his glory in all the world” 

Even though he was speaking to a different experiment the point was the same for our experiment.  Unless you step out and test the claims that the life Christ promises is greater than life without him then how can you ever know for sure?  We decided that the most important decision we could make early on in our marriage was not to protect privacy, or commit time to ourselves but to build the discipline of saying “yes” to the Lord and allowing Him to show His mighty provision and care.  This way the next time He puts something on our hearts that seems a bit “radical” we will be able to boldly take that step having experienced his provision first hand. 

As I write this, we are three weeks into our “experiment” and I can already say that God is very good and we have been truly blessed already.  We look forward to updating you all on how God is using this time and how he has used this home for his glory.  We love all of you, we would love you to comment, ask questions and continue to read our little blog.  Sorry it’s a little long this time J 

-Taylor