culture making - more of this, less of that...

It's awkward to call the discussions we've been having around Flatlanders lately 'forming' ones, since the community has been around for a while.  Yet, the leadership group that are moving in this fall is untested together, and so we are forming.  We are sorting out how to get what we believe in our head to make sense on our doorstep and in our relationships.

We recognize that we want to be intentional about creating a certain culture... here are some snippets of Monday night conversations in the last few months.

- a culture of participation/engagement - it might seem like a no brainer - people choosing to live in community are generally participators - but still, we know that we need to focus on this.  Sometimes it seems like sustainability is at odds with engagement.

- a culture of teachability and learning, vulnerability -  If you've already got it all figured out and you just want to convert everyone to your ideas, its bad news for life together!  Its amazing to learn from each other, to take situations apart together and wonder 'what can we learn?'

- a culture of sustainable ministry - A decade of inner city experience has taught me that there is a lot of come and go in this work.  I've seen intense passion replaced by intense resignation over the course of one summer - often!  We expect change and are discouraged and frustrated when it looks like nothing is any different.  For our team to be able to make a long term commitment requires a really good, hard look at what we believe about our purpose here, and a lot of honesty about expectations.   Working that out is a long, long process - at least it has been for me.

- a culture of extravagant love and acceptance.  - Unconditional love is always our aim.  We don't assume that people should change - we love folks right where they are at.  The difficulty we often wrestle with is that living at Flatlanders is conditional - and sometimes our friends get mixed up between unconditional love and conditional residency.  That is really hard. Really, really hard.
- a culture of joy and celebration- Our wednesday night potluck has a birthday, sendoff, or other celebration about once/month.  These are times to honor, encourage, and acknowledge one another.  They are beautiful and usually full of stories and laughter.

- a culture of generosity - if we got it, we share it!  Bread, eggs, meals, resources, cars, rides, smokes, spare change, bus tickets... all are regularly shared around here!

- a culture of discerning, not defaulting - you know the familiar patterns ... defend, self protect, blame, shift priority, (known to Bowenian therapists as triangling...)  we really want to hold eachother accountable to this practice of figuring out our ruts and learning our way to better, discerning habits.

- Faithfulness over effectiveness - have you noticed how committed to SUCCESS our society is?  I have been a victim and practitioner of the effective, efficient, goal focused model most of my life.  I doubt I'll ever be totally free of it... BUT - I am (finally?) learning that faithfulness is what we're called to - not effectiveness.  And an extreme commitment to effectiveness compromises faithfulness. (I think this is an idea I started to think about from Stanley Hauerwas)

- Hospitality over charity - North Americans are known as the most charitable people in the world.  Hooray for us!  But hold up -  if we really evaluate 'charity', can we admit that its often a substitute for engagement?  Can we observe that we have lost a lot of face to face caring, a lot of relational possibilities? That we've become charitable at the expense of hospitality?  Can we look really close up and see that often we're paying people (or the government is using our tax dollars) to do what should just be inherent in community?  Can we commit to spending the time and investing the energy to be part of lives instead of expecting the system to solve people problems?

- Genuine community over pseudo community - pseudo community is so easy.  Its nicey, nicey.  It would be so great if it weren't so empty.  This new team seems really committed to doing the hard and beautiful work of genuine community making.