Our Life Together Vol3, Number 6, February 11, 1975

Themes of renewal, restoration and healing were at the heart of what we sensed God doing in the Ministering Community. God had a purpose for us as individuals and as a church. We also, quite correctly, knew that whatever God was doing with us as a church, we were only part of what God was doing with His Church throughout the world.


Ken, in his cover article, discusses the fact that God is healing and renewing each of us individually. We are being restored to be God's creation before we were deformed by sin. Of course the emphasis of this particular article is that we need to be patient with one another when we are going through this process. This concept was important for basically two reasons. One is just the idea that God is renewing,restoring and healing. But, reason two was the fact that living in a community household brought all of this into the open. Healing was not a private thing. When a person went through difficult times, he/she went through it with all of us. If we were not patient with one another the household would blow apart. During my 7 years in community, I think that this occurred two or three times -- I am not talking about undercurrents (always present) nor individuals leaving -- I am talking about big blowouts where people were bouncing off the wall and/or walking out in groups.


One of these times was humorous and has been discussed on the House of Abba page in Face Book. This was the time when were all gathered to eat breakfast. Two of the women got into an argument regarding how one of the children was being managed. Before things calmed down, the large container of orange juice was being thrown the length of the table. Of course it got worse before it got better. I remember that the Bishops (an Anglican pastor from Oxford England and his wife) were there -- dressed for church. They had priceless expressions on their faces. I remember panicking and calling Ken to rush home (he was already at the church). We survived the "Great Westby House Food Fight."


The other time that I remember wasn't funny at all. It revolved around a deep argument of two women. Everyone was taking sides. People were crying and running out of the house. I remember walking out with my wife and sitting around the corner of the house talking with another couple of people. Sounds trite now, but when you live in community, you are so emotionally close to one another that these situations are like family fights on a large scale. We had to have patience for one another.


Clay's article on the Restoration of the Church deserves some good commentary. Here I will just state that he brings in the larger implications of renewal. It isn't just for the individual, it is the church. When renewal, restoration and healing of individuals is taking place within a place of safety (the church), without patience for one another, that church can fly apart as fast as the community household. When I look back on this time, church life and home life were both very intense. They were good times. But it was the love for Jesus and the love for one another that allowed us to be patient with one another during the difficult times.