Journey Place Community

What is community? This is the question that is on my mind as we plan Journey Place, a community of spiritual seekers on a journey to personal growth and community. Growing up I lived in what we might call "mid-America". For the most part I grew up in what we might imagine a town to be. There were homes of every size. The homes and the yards were carefully attended. Not much was out of place. The roofs were replaced when they needed to be. If the house needed painting, this was done too. The yards were not chemically treated in those days, but the folks kept the grass cut, the limbs picked up and the gardens were given the attention they needed to fit the picture of "mid-America." Not far from the residential area, there was the community park, the local Post Office, the corner store, the stone church that came to life every Sunday morning, and the sacred halls of the school that educated the town. Everything looked neat and tidy. Everyone interacted in apparent harmony, helping where needed and everyone played their roles with perfection. Is this community? Perhaps.

Growing up, I was known as the Preacher's Kid (PK). Although I saw myself as just another kid in the community, struggling through awkward childhood, playing crack the whip or red light, green light with my neighborhood buds, I was still treated differently by the community because I was the Preacher's Kid. This was particularly apparent when in the sixth grade, I rolled pieces of paper to make cigarettes and would pretend to smoke them. I remember this incident because my teacher embarrassed me in front of my class. She said, "Daniel, that is inappropriate for the son of a preacher. What would your father say?" I hung my head, realizing for the first time that being a PK required a different set of community expectations.

As a PK, I had my share of awkward moments, there was something charming about my life. You see, no matter where in "mid-America" my father moved, I knew what my role would be in the new community in which my father served. When I entered the new congregation my father was called to lead, I had an instant community, an instant family. I had more siblings than I could imagine, so many grandpas and grandmas and neat opportunities I wouldn't have experienced had I not been the son of a preacher. Could this be community? Is this the kind of community for Journey Place? Perhaps.

In his book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer reflects upon another notion of community -- one that is not so easily embraced. Bonhoeffer writes, "Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive." Bonhoeffer seems to suggest in this context that "community" based upon human emotions and imagination is not a Christ-centered community. It would seem that my notion of community and what I know of community does not reflect God's notion of community. The houses, the parks, the public school, the community green are ideas formulated by human imagination. How we structure the social order, the family unit may not be of God. It would seem that genuine community seeks to understand God's truth above all other truths; It seeks to walk in the light of Jesus Christ and to live only to serve one another. This kind of love is called agape love -- love that sacrifices not just for family or friends, but a love that sacrifices for one another because our motivation is above all else is love and serve one another. This is a Christ-centered community.

This is a different notion of community that calls upon us to ask the hard questions of life, why am I here? What is my purpose? Why should Journey Place exist? All of these questions may find its answer in the journey to be the community that lives for a far greater calling to be a different kind of community where agape love is the value of the day. And so, I babel on -- not to find answers, but to explore the questions of life and perhaps find it in Journey Place, a different kind of community.