Seaching for a true community

What was it? It was a question that she often asked herself. She longed for a haven a place where she could be loved and accepted for who she was. A place where people truly and deeply cared for each other. She knew what she wanted but didn't know what it was and so she searched. The search had taken her from place to place, each having in their own way part of whtashe looked for she would stay for a while then as the dissatisfaction rose, she would leave hoping that next time she would find the wholeness of what she looked for. This time as was the rest was no different. She took a deep breath and walked through the door of your church. What would she find there?

Lifestyle Enclave vs True Community

Welcome to the village

at the heart of the vision for the Christian Village. The vision of Christian Village is to be a movement dedicated to community, the whole ethos of the organisation is dedicated to helping the local church build a deep and abiding community. A community that would be like a village where everyone knew everyone and would help one another celebrating together morning together and working together. The church should be a true community not just a lifestyle enclave. the concepts of a lifestyle enclave is based on the work of Robert Bellah who writes

"Though the term community is widely and loosely shared by Americans and often in connection with lifestyle we would like to reserve it for a more specific meaning. Whereas a community attempts to be an inclusive whole, celebrating the interdependence of public and private life and the different callings of all, lifestyle is fundamentally segmental and celebrates the narcissism of similarity. It usually explicitly involves a contrast with others who do not share one lifestyle. For this reason we speak not of lifestyle communities, though they are often called such in contemporary usage, but of lifestyle enclaves. Such enclaves are segmented in two senses. They involve only a segment of each individual for they concern only private life, especially leisure and consumption. And they are segmentally socially in that they include only those with a common lifestyle. The different, those with other lifestyles are not necessarily despised, they may be willingly tolerated, but they are irrelevant or even invisible in terms of ones own lifestyle enclave."

Bellah, Robert Neelly, Sullivan, William M, Swidler, Ann, Tipton, Steven M. Madsen Richard (1996) Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life Los Angeles:University of California Press

May you and your churches be true representatives of Christs's commnuity on earth.

Cris