Monasteries and apartments

"It all started with a box

and twelve broken people who had no idea 

that what they would experience together 

would be the molding they needed to call themselves whole."

-- Excerpt from poem by student A. Wilburn

I saw the above verse on a photo caption on Facebook of a dear friend reminiscing about how beautiful and impacting his year has been.

One of my professors has imparted on me some great wisdom. Contrary to popular belief, two halves don't make a whole. Two wholes make a whole. Saying "I found my other half!" is essentially saying "I don't know who I am, and I found somebody who is letting me escape myself for the moment."

Being whole can be the greatest gift you give somebody, yet it is not something that comes easily nor does it come alone. It's a long, often painful, always beautiful process that requires God and each other.

I've recently become intrigued (aka obsessed) with the New Monastic movement (read as: Christian hippies) I read about in a book for class. Maybe I am becoming a "radical", maybe I am "emerging" - but this is beautiful. It's a movement of people, mostly young, who are finding that it is high time the church actually be the church. Without getting too nerdy and overly historical, the church lost a lot of its followers when we moved into an era that sought proof for belief. Today, our "proof" is found in the way we live, in our testimonies and our actions.

New Monasticism draws from ancient traditions, honors the surrounding culture, acknowledges dignity for all people, and values spiritual discipline. They are economically and environmentally conscious, realizing the impact we all have on our world.  Rather than visiting a ministry site every now and then, the movement advocates for believers to be the ministry site and move into the community they are reaching out to. It requires an immense amount of trust and sacrifice. But Jesus wasn't kidding when He said that to find our lives we must lose them. These bodies, this time, it's not our own.

They seek to create both individuals and communities that are whole.

I have become disgusted with myself this year over the amount of joy I find in things. I have realized the amount of stuff I have and do not use, the amount of purchases I make and do not need. I went through an intense season of evaluating whether or not I would be willing to be a missionary and have decided that I never want material possessions (or the lack thereof) to stand in the way. I have come to admire people who are able to pack up and leave, carrying everything they need on their back. I am far from that kind of simplicity, but I want to live a life that allows me to be both more generous and more conscious of my impact. I have become deeply convicted about buying into a market that abuses the poor, destroys the environment, and sells sex and lies.

Where I put my money shows where I put my heart. If I spend my paychecks on things that don't matter, things that crush dreams and rot in landfills, then I too am destroying rather than shaping.

Next year, I am rooming with five girls in a two-bedroom apartment. We are living in a housing complex that is a mix of students and of local community members. We have vowed to not let this year slip us by. It is an opportunity to not only encourage each other, develop disciplines, and be a light in a town otherwise riddled with gang violence and drugs. It is a chance to share dinner with the neighbors and create a welcoming atmosphere that somehow stands out in a culture that tells us to keep to ourselves.

This could be incredibly healing for me especially. I am still searching for what it means to be a stable, healthy family. I am still trying to figure out what it means to be in a home instead of a house. It could go very well - and it could go poorly, leaving me to doubt again.

Yet we are simply five broken people living together, seeking out what it means to become whole. We are nothing special. We will fight, we will disappoint, we will wrongly expect. The difference is that we will wake up the next morning and remember "I made a promise."

There is something special about living intentionally. I don't mean to say that some people live "accidentally", but there is a difference between simply doing things versus doing things with a purpose, with a specific goal in mind. This fellowship of selflessness we are seeking to create has the potential to transform us more towards the people God created us to be.


We were made for nothing more than to love, to serve, and to worship.