Living in community

Sadly a post I wrote earlier today from my iPhone seems not to have made it to the server. Maybe it's lost in cyberspace, who knows!

Anyway, I saw a really interesting piece on BBC Breakfast this morning about a "co-housing" project. A group of people have decided to live in a community together. Not a commune, but a community. They have their own homes but share social outdoor space, eat together regularly, share chores and even baby-sit for each other! A utopian experiment bound to go wrong, or a group of people who exploring the fundamental human need for community?

As a church we are a faith community. We're supposed to be leading the way in demonstrating to the world how you can live as part of a larger connected group of diverse people. Unlike the co-housing project, we don't get to choose our community members based upon compatibility. But what is interesting is that this experiment in community living belies a deeper human need as social beings.

Building community takes time and effort. It is costly. Just as a coalition government requires adjustments on both sides, building community will always involve compromise. It seems to me that shared values, core beliefs, are the things that bind a community together. The ability to embrace diversity it was enables it to flourish.

I guess the bottom-line question is are we willing enough and brave enough to build the kind of community that reflects our faith?