For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 19,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2009-03-03 issue:

Mennonite young adults show renewed interest in intentional communities

Older adults who have ‘been there, done that’ give advice: Be flexible, make space for yourself and consider forming an intergenerational group.

by Anna Groff

Print Article

While covering young adult conferences and retreats, assistant editor Anna Groff heard some Mennonite young adults express interest in intentional faith communities. Her assignment was to interview current and former members of several communities and ask them to reflect on their experiences.—Editor

Virgil Vogt has been a member at Reba Place Fellowship, an intentional Christian community in Evanston, Ill., for 45 years. He serves as associate conference minister for Illinois Mennonite Conference.

Throughout the past four decades, Vogt has observed changing attitudes toward intentional communities. In recent years, he has met many young people interested in radical expressions of Christianity. In the 1970s, many people showed an interest in communal living, but that diminished in the 1980s and 1990s, he says.

“Suddenly, through various means,” he says, “that broader interest [in intentional communities] is certainly strong throughout the country.”

This interest impacts Reba Place, as the involvement of young people in recent years has increased. Many of the young people that join Reba want to learn from and be part of a Christian community that has roots, he says. Some stay for a short time before they move on, and some have interest in starting their own communities.

“If people could arrange to actually live here for a few years … you learn so much more [by] being there all the time,” Vogt says. “Of course, there’s so much to be learned about how to get along with each other. We [at Reba] still have a lot to learn.”

Vogt says the church should have various options to fit various people, while maintaining faithful priorities.

“It’s more challenging from a leadership standpoint to make sure all these diversities are working together and people are generally moving in the right direction,” he says, “but God helps us greatly through that with the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Rich Foss joined Plow Creek Fellowship, an intentional church and community in Tiskilwa, Ill., with Sarah, his wife, in 1977. Plow Creek began in 1971.

Foss sees similarities in young people today interested in intentional communities and himself years ago. In 1974, he and a group of friends went to Reba Place seeking advice on starting a community. One person told them, “We used to encourage the starting of communities, but people should [just] join one.”

Foss says, “We did not heed their advice and promptly started our own.”

Foss relates it to the parable of the seed sower. Of the communities starting today, “one in five will end up on good ground, take roots and become a [vital] community.”

But Foss sees the value in young people. The age of most people in the community is from the late-50s to the mid-80s.“We have found a way to be a community,” he says, “that works for people who came of age in the 1950s and the Baby Boomer generation. Our challenge is to figure out how to be a community that also works for the next generations.”

One example of that effort is the People Against Poverty and Apathy festival that Plow Creek hosted last year. Most of the 800 participants were young adults, he says.

“Over the years, we’ve just become a lot more humble about our role in the kingdom of God,” Foss says. “We feel called to be faithful … but at the same time realize that we are a small part [of the kingdom].”

Three times a year, Foss takes a guided retreat with two mentors—one man and one woman. “It’s given me a source of strength as I’ve tried to serve the Lord in leadership at Plow Creek,” he says. “I would really recommend, especially to leaders, that they need to develop a pattern of spending time with the Lord and with Scripture.”

Keith Harder lived at Fellowship of Hope (FOH), Elkhart, Ind., with Judy, his wife, as part of the original group until 1985. Harder now serves as Healthcare Access for Church Workers project director for Executive Leadership.

Harder has good memories of his 16 years at FOH. Those years “created many wonderful moments and memories that I will always cherish,” he says. And with those memories came valuable lessons: people experience community differently, and people’s motivations for wanting to be part of a community differ, Harder says.

Another challenge is leadership issues. FOH hoped to be egalitarian, but as it grew and became more complex, the need for leadership became more evident, he says.

“The clash between idealism and the reality of our human condition was challenging,” he says.

Keith functioned in a leadership role for most of his time with FOH, In retrospect, he says, he did not consistently exercise that leadership in the best ways. However, it was a time for healing and learning about himself, for example, his desire for control in situations.

“I learned a lot about myself because of the degree of vulnerability,” he says, “and the degree of openness required me, and I think others, to let the light shine into parts of our lives that we didn’t necessarily anticipate. … The intensity and closeness revealed things about me that I didn’t necessary know were there.”

Read Harder's "What should I know before joining an intentional community?"

Alice Goertz was a member of Fellowship of Hope with Henry, her late husband, from 1974 to 1980.

“A hothouse environment” is how Goertz describes living in an FOH “extended household,” in which each resident had roles for household routines.

“There was abundant opportunity,” she says, “to ask the Lord for help in learning to adapt, share and grow in love.”

Henry and Alice spent nearly two years in an extended household, the other years in single family homes. Alice says she joined mostly because of Henry’s desire to explore Christian community.

“There were pressures to compromise, conform and accommodate to a variety of personalities in a confined space,” she says. “In my experience, the stronger personalities were more likely to thrive in this type of lifestyle. There were many common activities and often not much time or space for a shy introvert to regroup.”

Other challenges included the strongly hierarchical leadership that made practical and spiritual decisions for the entire group.

“The members who did not have as much input into the decision-making process could feel ‘less than,’ as so many of their life choices were made by others,” she says. “The members who felt committed to living in this kind of church community were better able to accept and adapt to these structures. At times I sensed an attitude among some members that those living in ‘community’ were a bit better than Christians who did not.”

Taking care of the toddlers with other women was a highlight for Goertz. But children also contributed to some complex dynamics at FOH.

“Our lives in extended household became increasingly more complicated as the young couples living there became parents,” she says. “Issues surrounding children’s behaviors and acceptable discipline strategies can generate a certain amount of heat and consume a lot of time in processing among those living closely with families.”

Aside from any challenges, Goertz says she is grateful she has been able to maintain “positive and precious relationships” with other FOH members from the years they were involved.

Linda and Dana Miller were members of Ixthus Fellowship, a student group at Goshen (Ind.) College in the early 1970s. Ixthus Fellowship was one of the groups that joined to form Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen in 1974.

Linda says Ixthus functioned like a family where people knew her more than anyone other than her nuclear family.

However, Linda would recommend forming a more intergenerational group, if starting one today.

“We all grew tremendously,” she says, “but it wasn’t without hardships.”

Dana likened joining a community to a marriage.

“As you get older, you realize the complexity of human relationships,” he says. “Going into it again, I would go with as much gentleness as I could muster, assuming forgiveness will be the highest priority.”

Linda offers several practical suggestions, recommending that housing situations offer personal space and time. Another decision to keep in mind is the group’s diet. When grocery shopping for Ixthus, it became a competition to see how little one could spend on food. Linda admits the group did not eat very healthily.

“Know who you are and what is good for you,” she says.

Reader Comments

Add Comments
  • Posted by verlin at Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 12:09 PM

    It's notable that a number of young people are interested in Christian intentional community. The current excitement generated by the visits of Shane Claiborne to Mennonite Colleges and communities is further indication of this. I was interested in what is reflected by the people interviewed [all of whom I know] but wish more could be said. I think of the recent interviews in Sojourners magazine by Jonathan Wilson Hargrave with Jean Vanier [who has a lot of wisdom in community living] as reflecting the importance of community as we find ways to live out the values we have inherited from our Anabaptist/Mennonite theology.