I am a pastor at 
Melanie and I were on a walk last night and we were talking for a bit about the challenge of being in community in our suburban environment. With all of our good intentions, its been hard to find a way gather with those who live around us to read scripture, pray together and just plain old be together.
There are a lot of factors that go into this. Children are a big key. We have two young children and we try and have them in bed by 8:00 each night so they don’t kill each other the next day. To do some kind of small group / bible study during the week is tough. Not impossible, but really, really hard to pull off.
Another issue is our busy schedules and the fact that while each of the families in our area have holes in the schedules, they rarely coincide. So, while we are free on Tuesday evenings, another family isn’t and they are free on Thursday evenings, another family isn’t, etc.
My point is, its just not cut and dry. As we talked, we are committed to finding a better way forward and figuring this thing out. But, its not easy and its not convenient. If convenience were our goal, we’d probably just keep on going like we are.
Personally I’ve been making it a priority to meet with another guy in our area on Wednesday mornings for coffee. It’s earlier than either of us want to be up, but it works and its been a great encouragement.
Often we have impromptu dinners with other families, especially the ones who we share kid watching with. Sometimes one of us will be watching the others kids and instead of heading them home for dinner on our own, we’ll just have dinner together. I mean, we’re already together so why make two meals and two sets of dirty dishes?
These are great ideas but the more we talked the more we realized that they aren’t perfect. They are helpful and very good and we’ll continue to pursue them. But, they are still imperfect options.
Really, the best option for us, and one we’ve prayed about for a while, is to purchase a duplex with a shared front porch, shared yard, shared back deck, etc. This way we could live in community while still having our separate living quarters. The more we talk about it, the more we realize that if we didn’t have kids sharing a house would be just fine. But, with kids we’re thinking its pretty important for them to have their own living spaces, at least while they are young.
Another option for us is to get a larger house with extra rooms or an apartment and have single people live with us and invite them into our family. This would be in a similar vein to the Mustard Seed House in Seattle.
With either of these options, we’d work on creating a rule of life that would include some committing to a weekly shared meal, a bible study night, neighborhood involvement and other practices that we would decide upon together.
Of course, all of this depends on us getting out of debt so we can purchase a house or finding someone who wants to invest in a missional venture like this where we would just rent from them and be in charge of keeping the house in order.
While I realize that this isn’t an answer for everybody, I think its the best one for us. The biggest thing we have to continue to do as suburban Christians is to constantly ask the hard questions and constantly look for solutions / answers to the challenge before us. I think the answers aren’t the same for all times, all people and all places. Some seasons require some answers and other seasons of life demand others.
But, the worst thing we can do is continue to function as part of our culture without asking hard questions about our default way of life. Melanie and I need to constantly be asking where we need to step out of the suburban mob and back into a way of life and a community that is more reflective of God’s kingdom and God’s purposes for our lives.
Again, this isn’t easy. But, I believe its totally worth the effort.
Economic Fallout & Monastic Communities « said...
1[...] working, studying, worshipping, cooking, playing together all under one big roof. It was amazing. Todd Hiestand muses about the possibility of going communal, and with the way $$ looks today it might be sooner [...]
09/18/08 1:52 PM | Comment Link
Pat said...
2Great stuff. We’re looking for this also, and we’ve committed to a small group to begin to recreate community that is beneficial for all of us (rather than a group that my wife and I “pastor” in the normal sense).
Tonight, we’ll take a walk through our neighborhood and exegete it, looking for signs of what my neighbors are pursuing as “the good life”, and then coming back and reading and discussing Matt 6:19-7:6 in our context. Hopefully there’s no rain.
09/18/08 2:01 PM | Comment Link
john chandler said...
3I think there is so much to be said for proximity, but such a challenge to find people who want to lived with shared mission in proximity to each other.
Austin has one of the lowest owner occupancy rates in the nation…I think only about 40% of people are living in a home they own. They means there is a lot of movement here. I think it will be a big challenge here, as much as anywhere, to help people identify with local relationships for community and mission.
Any idea what the owner occupancy level is in your area?
09/18/08 2:14 PM | Comment Link
Tim Seiger said...
4Good thoughts. I agree it is very difficult to find/create community. My wife and I have tried and are willing to order our schedules in large part around the forming of community but until others are willing to do the same our choices contribute very little. This is not to say that we will stop but it is discouraging and frustrating sometimes, ok, often. And more than that it is sad because people claim to want it, to long for it, BUT refuse to make time for it. They speak as though life happens to them and they have little if any control over what goes on in their lives. Walter Brueggeman talks about how words matter and can in fact actually create a world. I think one of the contributing factors to the lack of community forming is how people talk about and think about their lives. I know it sounds simplistic but I really am beginning to wonder how much the language we use to talk about our lives shapes our lives and what impact it would have if people would actually say “I am choosing to let the culture I live in determine my schedule and what is to be the best use of my time.” Or “I am choosing to not make community important.”
09/18/08 2:18 PM | Comment Link
Todd said...
5Pat, cool idea. Seattle? Rain. I am sure you’ll be fine :)
John, interesting stuff. I wonder about ownership here. I really have no clue.
Tim, good thoughts here. I too have felt some of what you are feeling and I’ve had to realize that people are on different journeys than we are. This is where the patience comes in that I don’t necessarily have.
Two years ago I would have probably been one of the people you are talking about but God has moved us to a different place. I have to believe that God is working in peoples lives in his own timing and has called some people to different things.
I guess, its the patience that is hard in the midst of trying to shepherd us and others into a way of life that says, “i am choosing community and mission over the other stuff the world is selling.”
I don’t know how not to sound condescending in this conversation. I do want to be prophetic in our culture and call people to a different way of life. But, I don’t want to drag them kicking and screaming.
again, the best thing I’ve tried to do is find patience and ask God to change us and continue to shape us and help some others want to come along on the ride with us.
09/18/08 2:46 PM | Comment Link
carolhiestand said...
6my mentor/friend, shirley said she was part of a group of women who were bemoaning how busy they all were . . . how they were living in their cars, running their kids all over the place ot all the activitied – sort of wearing their busyness like a badge of honor, yet complaining bitterly. finally she couldnt’ take it any more and said “I have a solution.” They asked her what it was. she simply said, “STOP!” they looked at here like she was crazy and changed the subject.
thanks for sharing your thoughts. We have had people live with us at different times – foster kids, singles who lived with us to help pay the mortgage, but we always felt like the ones who came to us were brought there by God. . . . even the one who smoked marijuana in the basement and had several cooking fires! remember?
09/18/08 4:29 PM | Comment Link
esther said...
7This is a conversation my husband and I have had often! We too have two young kids and bedtime is at 8 or sometimes earlier if its been a long day :) and that makes it really hard to have a book study/ whatever with other couples with young kids.
I recently read in this magazine about a place called Umatilla Hill (www.umatillahill.com) just outside Seattle, where its like a pocket neighborhood design. Small cottages that face eachother and have a shared yard/garden space. Now that would totally encourage community! My husband and I were really into that idea but its not in the game plan for now – well that is Seattle is not.
So we have found some creative ways to work with where we are at in suburbia. We have a four bedroom house and for the past year we have rented out a room to a single girlfriend of mine and then over the summer months we actually had another kid live with us who was an intern at IBM – he was a muslim student from Saudi Arabia. We just bunked the kids in one room. That has been a great way to be family to some single adults.
09/18/08 5:10 PM | Comment Link
esther said...
8oh i had another thought on this that i forgot to share – something that we are doing as a community with 3 other families is a meal sharing deal. we each make enough of one dish to share between 5 families and then we swap. the “extra” meal we use as a give away meal to perhaps someone in our neighborhood or our wider circle of connection. we are loving this! it is fun to have new foods and it relieves the stress of cooking every day and there is a built in natural outreach…i highly recommend this concept.
09/18/08 7:29 PM | Comment Link
don gale said...
9Todd,
Good post. My wife, our 9-week-old daughter, and I have been living with another family for 5 months. They have a 10-month-old daughter and a 78-year-old grandma. It’s been a blast. Great community. Great fellowship. It’s very different from the typical suburban ideals. It has been hard, though. God will definitely stretch you in big ways.
Why don’t more people do this? I think it’s because of our selfishness and thinking that we have to have our own space or stuff. Rewards never come cheap or easy. Sacrifices have to be made.
09/18/08 9:27 PM | Comment Link
In the Coracle » » links for 2008-09-18 said...
10[...] Todd Hiestand » The Challenge of Community in Suburbia » Missional Living in Suburban America The biggest thing we have to continue to do as suburban Christians is to constantly ask the hard questions and constantly look for solutions / answers to the challenge before us. I think the answers aren’t the same for all times, all people and all places. Some seasons require some answers and other seasons of life demand others. (tags: missional suburbia) [...]
09/18/08 11:27 PM | Comment Link
links for 2008-09-18 | kingdom praxis | a.k.a. eliacín's blog said...
11[...] Todd Hiestand » The Challenge of Community in Suburbia » Missional Living in Suburban America (tags: community missional church intentional suburbia) [...]
09/19/08 1:56 AM | Comment Link
david said...
12todd, i’m not sure if you’ve already looked into cohousing as well, but i think it’s a good option for those seeking sustainable, alternative means of communal living with a good balance of private space and shared space.
typical suburban residential zoning could use a good injection of communal/new urbanist design, not to mention the potential to facilitate depth and witness as a missional community.
i’ve blogged some about it here:
http://wordful.wordpress.com/category/cohousing/
peace.
09/19/08 7:27 PM | Comment Link
Fortuitous Bouncing « man.of.depravity said...
13[...] Hiestand understands the challenge to community within suburbia better than anyone I’ve [...]
09/20/08 4:45 AM | Comment Link
Tom said...
14I’m in, Todd. Can you move to Delaware?
09/20/08 11:56 AM | Comment Link
Christine Sine said...
15Todd,
A great discussion. Very much appreciate this. Living in Suburbia is definitely the hardest place to practice community and even getting our head around the changes it means for our priorities is hard.
09/23/08 1:54 PM | Comment Link
neil said...
16Most intersting comments. I am currently working (at an early stage) on a book which is trying to develop a workable theology for the suburbs within an English context. Suburbs seem to be a spiritual desert. Would love to engage people in debate and discussion about a new theology for the suburbs.
Neil Spencer, Liverpool , England
10/5/08 2:06 PM | Comment Link