So Taty and I are living in Santa Ana, CA – as most of you already know – and serving at 511, a creative project of Newsong Church.
One thing that some of you might not know is that we are living in a 4 bedroom house with 3 other girls from Newsong.
It all started the day that we met the team that’s serving at 511, and Helen shared as a prayer request that she and another friend (Jane) were looking for a roommate to move to Santa Ana.
To be really honest at first I was kinda skeptical about it, but at the same time open for it. At that point, the only two times I’ve heard about Communal Living were in the 60′s and in Alan Hirsch’s book “The Forgotten Ways“. (hahaha yeah I know…)
For a while Taty and I prayed about it and we ended up really feeling that it was something we should try. In the process a third girl (Amy) also decided to join us. Right now it’s me and Taty, Helen, Jane and Amy.
So from now on, I’ll be sharing some of my experiences as a husband/pastor/guy living in a “communal living” environment.
There were two main reasons why I decided to try this out:
1. Clear vision.
The five of us moved to Santa Ana with a clear vision of being a blessing to the community that surrounds us.
2. Learning experience.
I really see this as a learning experience. All the little issues that will come up, the shared responsibilities , the conflicts… I know God will use to mold me to become more like Jesus. First step? To be less selfish.
At this point (it has only been 2 weeks) I don’t know exactly how long it will last or if I will ever do this again in the future. For now, I committed myself to try and experience a little bit of what the early church experienced.
UPDATE: Just to clarify it. We have developed own form of Communal Living. We aren’t sharing all of our incomes for example, as most of the traditional communes do. (Thanks, Howie!)
