Our Life Together Vol. 3 Nr. 17 April 29, 1975

Ken's lead article discusses the upcoming hearings. From this time on until 1980, our problems with the city were always somewhat a part of our life; sometimes only a background hum, but other times a real concern. The year 1975 was probably the high point for all of this. As the year went on, things seem to get worse and worse in our relationship with the city. Of course as the problems got worse and worse, the controversy grew. We became quite familiar with seeing ourselves on the evening news.

Ken mentions the fact that many of us went around getting signatures for a petition to the city. I don't doubt his word (I can't remember all of the details), but our experience with the neighbors was certainly not positive. I have written about the specifics in another post.

The little article by Joyce Clark was very interesting to me. The church was very much into C. S. Lewis. Our children performed plays based upon the Chronicles of Narnia. "Mere Christianity" was very much a part of bringing me back into fellowship with the Lord; many others were influenced by it also. Since science fiction was one of my favorite forms of literature, I loved his Space Trilogy.

In a much earlier posting on this blog I discussed the Pioneer/Settler Theology. This was an important background piece in our understanding of being the people of God. The actual writing appeared several times in the lifetime of the publication. It was talked about and dramas were performed about it. Non of us wanted to be a settler. We were of spiritual pioneer stock!

I have mentioned Mike Sandez before. I am still always interested in his take on life. He was a deep young man and has become a deep mature man. He is presently a Law Professor at Liberty College.

Lastly, I will just call attention to Larry's article on a new game. This is actually quite funny. I personally find it all the funnier because this is very different than most of the things that Larry wrote.

Our Life Together Vol. 3 Nr. 16 April 22, 1975

I think that it is important to note that even in the midst of our trials with the city, there were many who were very supportive of our community. The letter by Ann DeHuff Peters, M.D., a research physician from UCLA is a great example of that support. Several of the children from our community were a part of her study. She was researching the effects of alternative lifestyles on the health and development of children. As can be seen in this letter, she really affirms us. I might add that she was a big help in getting us the status as a foster parents home as discussed in an earlier posting.

Clay discusses his experiences in assembling and producing the musical, "Come Together." This was a great, ecumenical production. I think that he was right that the musical itself was secondary to the real coming together of the churches in Chula Vista. Many of the cooperating churches were very supportive of us.

On a personal note, I found it very interesting that even some pastors who would rail against us, would call us when they had an emergency too big to handle. I remember the time that a pastor called saying that he had a young person on drugs that needed help. He was unable to help, but thought we would be just the ticket for her healing. Then he asked if he could bring her over to us.

This brings us to Ken's article. Why were we such a healing place? Of course the basic answer is that this was a place where Christ was free to heal; he is the healer, not us. But Ken's article gets to another part of the truth. Our households were a safe place! People could let down their guards. They could be open and honest with their hopes and fears; and still be accepted. I know that there are those who experienced actual and/or perceived abuses in the households. I am not dismissing these charges, but I still believe that day in and day out, the atmosphere in the households was one of acceptance and healing.

Our Life Together Vol. 3 Nr. 15 April 15, 1975

The controversy over our Ministering Community was just beginning as this issue was published. Ken's article gives the particulars delineating how we got to the position that we were in at that time. Shortly after this issue my wife and I called on one of our neighbors asking them to sign the petition. They were friendly people and we had talked with them before. Linda and I had been asked to talk with them because our neighbor was a Commander in the Navy. We went to their house and had friendly small talk; then we asked them to sign the petition. After this everything was changed. They were no longer friendly. In fact they treated us like criminals. What changed? Why were our neighbors against us? Why were so many people in the city against us? I think that the biggest issue was fear. There were three basic issues fueling this area of fear:

• Fear of the presence of a "licentious, hippy commune" in their neighborhood,
• Fear of lost property values because of the above issue,
• Fear of an unknown cult in the community.

No matter how much we talked about living together as a family, people tended to equate our community with what was seen in the newspapers about "hippy" communes in places like Haight-Ashbury. Since we were living together and sharing in common, we must be the same as one of these places. It didn't matter that we were connected with a church. Since we were one of those communes, we must live in licentiousness with "free sex" -- and there were probably drugs as well. It wouldn't be long before there would be police busting in to those communes. The people vociferously said that we weren't wanted in their neighborhoods. I personally walked through a crowd at one of the hearings listening to people saying that if the city allowed us to continue, they would burn us out. Some angry people -- but mainly because of fear caused by a mistaken idea of who and what we were.

Actually the fear of falling property values was related to the above. People felt that we were going to let our property to deteriorate and, of course, the neighborhood would deteriorate too. "There goes the neighborhood." "Our property values are going down." Actually the properties didn't deteriorate. I really credit the heads of household for this. They worked hard themselves -- and motivated others -- to keep the property up. The problem wasn't lazy people. The problem was that most of the young people living in the houses didn't have the experience to know what needed to be done to maintain the property. Thus it was a task for the head of house. I lived with Ken Pagaard for seven years. Ken was diligent in this area. My first task after returning from the Navy was to dig terraces in our large, sloping back yard. Then a retaining wall was built on each terrace. This was a big job; and a big learning experience for me. I am sure that this actually increased our property values.

Finally the fear of a new cult in town was a big issue. This was an age of young people joining groups, parents losing control, and deprogramming young people who had been lured into one of these cults. One of the cults where this was happening was "The Children of God." The leader of the anti-children of God cult, lived in Chula Vista. At one point he had asked us to watch a couple of people pulled out of the cult, until they could be deprogrammed. Well, we didn't hold them by force, so they left. We were then on his list as a major cult. He helped fuel the fire. This actually continued for many years. I graduated from Bethel Seminary in 1981. Because of complaints that I was a member of a cult, I almost didn't graduate. I was actually in my cap and gown and standing in line for the ceremony while the Board of Regents was meeting to decide my fate. Yes, they let me graduate, but that was close.

There will be more on this controversy in future postings. It was an interesting time.

Our Life Together Vol.3 Nr. 14 April 8, 1975

Ken's article was one of the important ones. We came back to this issue of how we talk to one another many times. He bases this on scripture. He really has some great points. Wouldn't things be a lot different if we were polite and kind to one another rather than mean and dismissive of one another. I like that. Ken also points out that our language is to be serious. Certainly we can keep one another at arms length be using only superficial talk. We can also mask our feelings by not being truthful. Lastly we can also be nasty be "telling the truth with love," (usually when this phrase was used in community, the word was neither truthful nor given in love -- this was just our license to vent.)

I disagree with Ken on two counts. The first one is that of humor. Laughter is good. We talked then and most of us talk now about the importance of joy in the Christian life. We were not meant to be sour and serious all of the time. I don't think that this scripture is precluding a use of humor. I know in Westby Household there were a lot of funny situations and several very funny people. It was so healthy when we would laugh together. I was known for making puns -- of course people would groan when I came out with one -- but then we would all laugh together; very healthy. I do think that it is important that our humor doesn't come at the expense of another. We must stay away from ridicule of a brother or sister, but good, clean humor is a bond builder.

The second area of disagreement with Ken is in the area of superficial talk. Without some superficial talk, many of us wouldn't talk at all. Certainly a relationship can't deepen without getting to know someone first. This is part of the purpose of talking about the weather, a movie or some funny episode of life. We also learned in community that we do need some wisdom about how much of our inner lives we reveal to people. There were people in community that really betrayed the trust of some vulnerable people. In trying to obey Ken's injunction on superficial talk, many people were too ready to spew out their deepest secrets at a moments notice. I guess I really became aware of this tendency a few weeks after this issue came out. I was at the church office -- just hanging out -- when a person came in. Being a friendly type of person, I said, "How are you?" Of course, I expected, "Fine." But what I got was tears followed by, "Oh you won't believe what I have just gone through. . ." This happened three times in succession. I stopped asking that question around the office.

I think Ken's article if very valuable. We do need to be careful about our speech. But I think that there is a good place of humor and superficial speech is a good thing at times.

Our Life Together Vol 3 Nr 13 April 1, 1975

This was another of those issues that elicited a lot of discussion on Facebook. It all started when I mentioned that the thing I noticed about this issue was that in the section entitled "In the Family", it stated that I would be returning from my Westpac deployment and that I would be leaving the Navy. This was a very important time for me.

Linda and I had joined the church in 1967. At the time I really thought that we would stay here for a couple of years and then go wherever the Navy sent me. This almost took place as I actually had orders to Hawaii in late 1968, but the good people in the Bureau of Naval Personnel changed my orders. Of course, looking back, I believe that God played a hand in keeping us here. As the years went on Linda and I began to change. I became an Elder in the church; my Navy career wasn't the most important part of my life. We both wanted to serve the Lord. It became very clear to us in 1974 that we were to move into a community household. This would be quite awkward if I was to remain a Naval Officer; my first loyalty could never be to the community, my first loyalty was to the Navy. I wrestled with this decision, but late in 74, with the concurrence of the eldership, I resigned my commission in the Navy. The Navy granted my request with the provision that I make one more tour to the Western Pacific before I left the Navy.

Linda, Rick, Robin and I moved into Westby Household (Ken Pagaard was the head) in October, 1974. About a week after we moved in, I deployed to Westpac. I was the Logistics officer for Commander Amphibious Squadron One at the time. My boss was responsible for several ships (my memory fails, but I believe that we had two LSTs, two LSDs, one LPH and one Communications Ship). The exact composition doesn't matter at this date -- and it occasionally changed. My only reason for mentioning this was because the composition of ships in this squadron, of course, determined our mission. At the time of this article, I (along with the rest of the staff) had just completed the planning for the evacuation on Pnom Penh, Cambodia (I should check my spelling on the city -- just bear with me). I didn't take part in the evacuation as this happened just after I left the squadron -- and of course that evacuation was quickly followed by the evacuation of Saigon, VN. I missed all of that. I won't rehearse the dialogue here, you can find it on my profile page on Facebook.

The more important discussion revolved around the articles by Ken and Clay. The issue discussed was the nature of the Gospel. There came a time in community where we did seem to feel that community was the gospel. I know that Ken used to say that one could not understand the New Testament unless they lived in community. Most of the ones commenting (I include myself) believe that community was a means of living out the gospel, but not the end. In any case this is an interesting issue. Both the article by Ken and the one by Clay are well worth reading.

Our Life Together Vol. 3 Nr. 12 March 25, 1975

When this issue was posted on Facebook about a week ago, the most feedback concerned the emphasis that Ken Pagaard placed upon Scripture reading and memorization. I agree with those who mentioned this. Ken always place a heavy emphasis on Bible Study. Certainly my interest in the Scriptures was renewed under his ministry. We felt then and I still feel that one of the major emphases of the Charismatic Renewal was the study of Scripture. This seemed to be a hallmark of what "being filled with the Spirit" was all about.

I remember in those days in community seeing young people all around the church carrying and reading their Bibles. The didn't carry little pocket Bibles. The toted large Bibles. They were not just decorations. They were eagerly read. Groups of young people would be actively discussing their recent understandings from the Word. This was an interesting time. As an "old person" (in my late 30's) I was really challenged by these young people.

Ken also really challenged the people (and me) with memorization. I was very active in memorization for several years, even after I became pastor at the church. This has been very helpful to me in my ministry. When the Word is memorized, it seems to flow out of your mouth when confronted with an appropriate situation. Tim Pagaard mentioned (on Facebook) that he was grateful to his father for this -- I am too.

Gary Bell discusses "tongues" and the value of this gift. Both Ken and Gary were really writing after the ministry by Dick Mills at the church. Mills had a ministry whereby he gave individual prophecies to people using scripture (memorized) to provide this word to the individual. Of course, "tongues" was the controversial gift whenever the Charismatic Renewal was discussed.

Finally, Clay discusses one particular "cult", the Local Church based upon Watchman Nee's writings. I find this interesting because the subject of cults was a big one throughout the 70s. Of course part of the interest for us was that we were often labeled as one of those cults. This made us somewhat defensive -- and we were always on the lookout for what we felt were cults. We really didn't (and I still don't) feel that we were a "cult". We really strove to maintain our orthodoxy.

Our Life Together Vol 3 Nr 11 March 18, 1975

The thing that caught my eye on this issue was the birth of Joshua Mower. This opened a strange and wonderful chapter in the life of our community. Cathy, Joshua's mother was a young lady with many problems. She was under Psychiatric Care and spend some time institutionalized. For a while she was in community. We did the best we could through prayer and other ministry to bring healing to her. In fact, one of the first things that I did after coming back from the Navy was to participate in the "24 hour" ministry with her. One night I was assigned to the Mid Watch (Midnight until 4 in the morning). Our job was to pray over her and, if she became restless, to read scriptures to her. The we is another chapter in my life, another new person to community, Penni Neely (then Wilson) was placed with me. We have now been friends for about 35 years. Anyway, back to the story of Joshua.

Since Cathy was unable to care for him, he was assigned to a young, unmarried woman, Jacque Johns (now Mays) to care for him. Of course, Jacque quickly became his mother. As a side note, Jacque went on a trip to England later in the year and my wife Linda took care of him in Jacque's absence. Josh was a cute little thing and Linda had a hard time giving him back to Jacque. As time went on and it became certain that Cathy would never be able to really care for him, something needed to be done to satisfy legal, guardianship issues. We didn't want him to end up in the foster care system -- he was too much a part of us. Jacque applied to become his foster parent.

Becoming a foster parent as a single person was quite unusual at the time. Then there was the issue of Josh's biological dad, not to mention that Jacque was living in a commune. No one knew where the bio-dad was. We had to advertise throughout the areas where we felt he might be. No answer came. Then, not only did Jacque need to be investigated to be certified as a foster parent, the entire household had to be certified -- all 20+ of us had to be checked out. It worked. Josh became Jacque's real foster child. We were all part of the foster family. Joshua really became a part of us. Since then, Jacque was married and Josh was adopted into the family. He is now a grown parent himself.

I think that this was one of those chapters that demonstrated some of the best aspects of community life. Josh would probably have become a part of the child care system if the household had not been there. We were committed to Jacque. We were committed to Joshua. I haven't seen him for years, but I really love him and certainly remember him well. A neat time.

Our Life Together Vol 3 Nr 10 March 31, 1975

Ken's article "To Me for You" generated the most response on Facebook. One of the first comments was in relationship to his comment:

Like the Jews of Biblical days we feel that God sits in heaven and delights to pour down his blessing upon us (or me) as his special people, and our responsibility is limited to just receiving his blessings and indulging ourselves.

The comment about this is that Ken seems to be overgeneralizing about the Jews. Another comment said that this is also the attitude of most Christians. Of course this is an overgeneralization about Jews or Christians. But there is a tendency in our churches to see God as our "Blessing giving Santa Claus". We see this especially in the Health and Wealth Gospel purveyors. Certainly God does seem to delight in blessing us -- but why? I think Ken is right on point. God blesses us so that we might bless others. This was another of the teachings that was at the center of our community life.

Some of the comments were not directly related to this article, but they brought up an important point; the importance of Bible reading in the church and in community. The Bible was at the center. We really tried to ensure that any of our teachings were scripturally sound. It was amazing how the young people of that day devoured the Bible. Everyone carried their Bible and seemed to be reading anytime that they had a spare moment.

Clay's article discusses our need for compassion for those around the world who were persecuted or oppressed. This teaching was always important for us. Living in community can cause us to become inward focused. There was always a tension between the inward focus and our need to be outward focused.

Lastly I must mention the letter which demonstrates the influence that Ken Pagaard and the First Baptist Church had in many places throughout the country. Last night I had dinner with an old friend and his wife. They both remember being influenced and encouraged by the ministry of our church during the 70s. Incidentally the lived in different parts of the country at that time. She had actually visited the church briefly. Of course one of the instruments of this influence was OLT. Actually this letter states that the people depended upon it.

Our Life Together Vol 3 Number 9, March 3, 1975

This article touches on three important understandings of life in Community. The first one of these is actually on touch. It is the article by Fr. Paul Hinnebusch, O.P. taken from the February, 1975 issue of New Covenant Magazine. In this article, the author first points to the importance of touch in the life of Jesus. He touched the leper, he touched many of those needing healing. Even after his resurrection, he touched and was touched by the disciples. In fact Fr. Hinnebusch states that the importance of the touch after the resurrection wasn't to demonstrate that he had a physical body, the importance was to establish the fact that he was really and tangibly alive. Because after the cross and after the resurrection, Christ returned to the Father and then the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church, Jesus was in many ways more intimately present that he had when he was present in the flesh.

The point of this article, and its importance for us in community was the last part where he asks the question, "Whose life have I touched?" He has already presented a beautiful story about loving the unlovable. He also gave the story about St. Francis and the leper. We really believed that when we touched people through physical touch or emotional touch (with words and kindnesses) that this was a way to touch people with God's love. God loving through us.

The second principle is presented through the page of art by Kathy. This demonstrates that while we can protect ourselves from hurt by closing ourselves down, this also keeps us from truly loving and accepting love from others. To feel love, we must be vulnerable. This was taught to people who were hurting. this was also taught to us who live with and minister to that hurting person. We must be careful with someone who has "just come out of their shell."

Finally, Clay writes a fine article on the Pre-eminence of Jesus. Jesus is the reason for all that we do. This is an echo from my last blog. We did not move into community to be involved in social action. We didn't even move in to serve and love others. The motivation for community was to serve Jesus Christ. Everything we did was for and about him.