Intentional Christian Community

This is an email that MAN recently sent out to our homeschool group about Intentional Communities....

"Have you ever wondered if you could ever life like the Amish? If you're like me certain aspects of it are appealing. Not everything, of course, but then not everything in our modern life is all that appealing. Ok, so I wouldn't adopt Amish doctrine and I'm not talking about an isolationist cult but a Christian community of caring, loving, serving, like-minded folks who still are hungry for more of what the Lord has for us
and to be obedient to the Great Commission. The new term is Intentional Christian Community.

I've mentioned this once before briefly and since then Rea and I have done a little research into the subject. We even traveled to a small one community in eastern Ohio and met with folks for a day. Each community would certainly have its own unique characteristics and this one was on the wane and had little land left to develop.

The idea is simple and mostly self-sufficient and debt-free living depending on technology as available and focusing on developing the simple skills of farming, construction, and home-making. Members have the choice and are encouraged to attend their own church or attend "simple church" or housechurch as some of you have heard of.

Recently a start-up community contacted me through a network of interested folks. We have been having a wonderful time of online and phone fellowship and discussing the development of this community. We haven't decided to join yet as there are lots of details to work out and to determine our compatability.

In the next few weeks we will be traveling to meet with the founder and 3 or 4 other
families who are planning to start developing the land this year. 150 acres are
already purchased and somewhat developed. There is more land nearby and they are also looking at an additional 60 acres with some infrastructure, pasture, and
timber.

Interestingly the founder and I have both attended a log home builder's school in Washington state. Neither of us had any prior knowlege of this. He has weighed
the benefits and low cost of building log homes from scratch and is leaning toward a compressed adobe (rammed earth) type construction. It's cheap, available, fast, uses on-site resources (dirt) has superior insulation properties, and needs no mortar. Details and videos areavailable online at http://www.adobemachine.com/ .

The whole idea appeals to me considering the times we live in. There are huge uncertainties facing all of us (especially Christians) who want to preserve our faith for future generations. Economic upheaval, energy, food, climate, political. Know this, that if you don't know what might hit you, then you won't be prepared when it does. I believe that the time to prepare is now while our government is still able to keep things afloat for a little longer.

If any of you are interested I will add you to my email list and try to keep you informed of our progress. I won't be using GBHEF for this purpose so you will have to let me know your email address to keep informed.

Thanks for your time. God keep you and
bless you."

Like he mentioned, we have been to visit a community that was about an hour and a half away from our current home. We are going out to meet the founder and his family (and the other families) of this new community. It's further away than we had planned for ourselves, but if it's God's calling then that is where we will go. We are also open to the idea that maybe this is a fact mission to start our own right here with the families that we already know and love, near our current church. We are in deep prayer as this will affect our family in a BIG way. But as I've said before, we have a BIG God! We have some very large hurtles that stand in our way, but if it is His will....

Please pray with us that we would be able to discern what we are being lead to do, and to be bold and brave with whatever the outcome is. And that the fears that we both have would be calmed and questions answered.