How Community Started

The following quotes from an article in Vision Magazine, no. 16, July, August, 1976 by Ken Pagard gives some history describing how the community began:

It all began innocently enough, almost four years ago, as an expression of God's love in us. John tells us in his first letter that if we have this world's goods, and see a brother in need, then close our heart to materially helping that brother, we can lay no claim to having God's love. (I John 3:17) There was a girl from Seattle, pregnant, living in an apartment by herself, going to pieces. So we invited her home with us. Then an incorrigible boy from the school where my wife teaches was sent to Juvenile Hall. We felt nine years old was too young for that, so we asked the authorities if we could have him. My brother, a missionary in Africa, asked to leave his two teenage children with us to finish high school. Then an alcoholic whom I had tried to help for years was invited to join us, then a man just out of prison, and a divorcee with two children.

Other families in the church were also doing the same. We would get together to help each other, compare notes, and pray together. Gradually the sharing became broader and deeper. Ones who had come needing ministry were healed, and wanted to stay on as part of the ministry. Others from the church joined in to strengthen the ministry. This was given increased impetus through contacts with the Christian community at the Church of Redeemer in Houston, Texas, a couple of years later. The households ministering to broken people began to come together into a single entity sharing with each other, while remaining geographically separate. Over the following two years this group of families caring for needy individuals gradually developed into a real Ministering Community.

The name explains what it is. It is a community — people sharing together. More and more it has come to the point of sharing all things in common, as in the early church (Acts 2 and 4). This is a sharing together of material possessions — those who work contribute their total income to the community households. Each household has its own common treasury from which are paid all the household bills, food, clothing, etc. Each person also receives an allowance for incidental needs and expenses. We try to work it so that there are enough wage earners in each household to be able to meet expenses of the household. However, if one household is short and another has extra, there is sharing from one house to another. While for legal reasons title to most houses remains in individuals names, for all practical purposes they belong to the Community.

However, the sharing is more than material, it is the sharing of a whole life. It is a matter of living together with real love for each other, learning what it is to be considerate of each other, adjust to each other, give in to each other. It is a matter of in love being subject to one another, surrendering something of our independence so that we can become one body serving the Lord. This means a growing in being open with each other, and being freed from the many bondages that bind.

The start that Ken mentions as "about 4 years ago" was in 1970. This article which will be cited in more articles and in a book which I am preparing discusses how First Baptist Church became itself a Ministering Community.