As part of our Cultivating Intentional Communities gatherings, on Feb. 27.09 we crammed 29 people in the middle level of the Mustard Seed House in Seattle for a conversation about Intentional Communities and Christian Radicalism with Mark Van Steenwyk.

Mark Van Steenwyk is a member of Missio Dei (an Anabaptist intentional community anchored on the West Bank of Minneapolis that pursues Jesus’ way of simplicity, prayer, hospitality, and peace). Missio Dei is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA and the Baptist General Conference.

You can get the MP3 of the conversation here

While you are there get the many other Mp3’s including Mark Scandrette, Christine Sine, Lisa Domke, Shane Claiborne, Efrem Smith, Eugene Cho, David T. Olson, Tom Sine and many others. These MP3’s are available for a micro-price.

Join us at the Mustard Seed House for an evening of conversation with Missio Dei’s communitarian Mark Van Steenwyk and follow Mustard Seed House people.

Mark Van Steenwyk is a member of Missio Dei (an Anabaptist intentional community anchored on the West Bank of Minneapolis that pursues Jesus’ way of simplicity, prayer, hospitality, and peace). Missio Dei is affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA and the Baptist General Conference.

The evening will be an informal time of sharing stories and experiences about new monasticism, intentional communities and radical discipleship.

For more info, contact Eliacín

When? Friday, February 27 at 7:00 PM

Where? Mustard Seed House , Seattle (click to see map)

This is a free event, but spaces are limited. Registration is required. Register here.

 The New Monastics and Mosaic Leadership: Otra Voz by Gabriel Salguero
A Historical-Contextual Perspective: This is no small point. Often in the public presentations, books, and conferences of these aforementioned movements, they are presented as something new going on. (I don’t think this is intentional.) I have been on college campuses and multiple emerging leaders’ gatherings where many well-intentioned next generation Christian leaders see these movements as if something new is happening. This dangerous omission often makes many indigenous grassroots workers feel like there is some type of cultural-capital being cashed in at the expense of life-long indigenous Christian leadership.  Present-day movements should continue to clearly tie and partner, when possible, with the legacy of the Black Church, the Latin-American and Latino(a) grassroots communities, abolitionists, faithful women’s movements, the South-African church, etc. around the world. Also the New Monastics, Emergent Church, etc. could learn and partner with the work of storefront Pentecostal and indigenous congregations who have lived and worked in economically challenging contexts for some time. Some of these leaders and pastors did not choose to relocate; they were born, raised, and chose to stay in these contexts.

Read full post at God’s Politics

What I wrote may sting a bit, this kind of stuff always do. So I am expecting some heat to come from it. I expect some push back and defensive comments, but hopefully this will add to the conversation. 

New Monasticism and White Privilege
What Vonetta and Jason have done with their provocative blog post is to help shed light on the homogeneous white and male expression in New Monasticism and beyond.  By that I mean how “natural” it seems that most of the perceived leadership of this movement is white and male. I am certain there are women and men of color alongside. People of color are often considered strong companions and wise counselors, but often in hierarchies of power, people of color are behind the scenes–not in the spotlight. Part of the luxury of oblivious white privilege is that it is normal to have people of color around, while for the most part being oblivious that they are systematically assigned a place on the sidelines. It is not by chance that it is hard to find people of color as prominent figures in spreading the vibes of New Monasticism through books, conferences, and new media. This also true of many other new emerging expressions of contemporary Christianity. 

This predominantly white expression of New Monasticism is not a personal thing, it is part of a larger system of social categories, social identity and perception. New Monastics, white and of color, are not above or beyond the psychology that structures our racial and social identity and consciousness.  Nor do we live in a vacuum where we are not affected–positively or negatively–by these structures. So this conversation is not about just individuals, but about bigger dominant systems of oppression. That said, it does get personal sometimes–and not by choice. The unearned privilege that comes with being white may not be something people choose or take.  The advantage is given by the system of social categorization, but the realization that some might benefit from a social construct while others are marginalized is a tough pill to swallow.  

Read more at God’s Politics Blog…

 

Do not miss this insightful and provocative post from my friends Jason and Vonetta Strobakken from Radical Living Community in NYC. This is a first in a series of posts and responses in God’s Politics Blog about the subject of multi-cuttural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic expression in new monasticism.

Reconciliation’s Challenge for New Monastic Communities (by Jason and Vonetta Storbakken)

The key players in New Monasticism have made important strides in raising awareness of issues pertinent to disenfranchised members of our society, yet these leaders often make some of the same mistakes as their conservative counterparts. One of the Twelve Marks of New Monasticism is the “lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.” Although most do “lament” the racial divisions in our society, one is hard-pressed to find a leader in New Monasticism who is not a middle class white male. However, the problem is not with their class, color or gender, but that there has yet to be an “active pursuit” of reconciliation realized within the myriad intentional communities that have sprouted across the United States. And after some good private conversations with some those leaders, we agreed to open a public dialogue about this issue because by their very natures both this conversation and this movement aren’t just about a handful of leaders. It’s about every member of every community who needs to actively seek reconciliation.

Read more…

The Mustard Seed House (MSH) is an intentional Christian Community in Seattle. I am very fortunate to be one of the original core families and conspirators in this liberated space in which we try to embody God’s Kingdom value as a new kind of family.

Here are some photos of some of our gatherings, activities and ordinary family life. There will be more added soon. So keep checking them out.

Photos of the Mustard Seed House (via Flickr)

Peter and Anneke Geel will be leaving the Mustard Seed House in August. Peter has been accepted into the doctoral program at Georgetown University and for some reason they aren’t very keen on commuting to Washington DC each week. We are looking for a couple who are interested in joining our small community here in Seattle and moving into our 1 bedroom basement apartment. We are looking for people who can make at least a two year commitment.

The Mustard Seed House is an intentional, intergenerational Christian community with 3 families, 2 dogs, numerous bird feeders and a worm bin. We are little like a large extended family – kids and dogs are full participants in all our activities. We are keen organic gardeners, and are particularly concerned about creation care, sustainable lifestyles and spiritual rhythms for life. Our present shared practices include a  1+ weekly dinner and check in time, weekly prayer, and a 1+ monthly garden day. As a community we offer generous hospitality to people from around the world and provide an opportunity for visitors to explore a regular rhythm of prayer and worship as well as other aspects of kingdom living being modelled by the community.

The Mustard Seed House is part of Mustard Seed Associates though not everyone in the community works for MSA. The community often hosts MSA gatherings and provides a central place to gather to discuss issues facing us now and in the future and to develop creative models that reflect something of God’s kingdom values. We are in the process of developing a rule of life that will provide guidelines for shared practices not just for those in the Mustard Seed House but for others associated with MSA as well.

If this doesn’t sound too scary and you are still interested we would love to hear from you.

For more info contact mustardseedhouse@gmail.com

My Friend Jason from our sister community the Radical Living Community (In NYC) sent me their new newsletter – Agape Times.

In this issue we…

• Stop by the local food co-op
• Visit the Bruderhof in Harlem
• Hear from Eliacin of the Mustard Seed House in Seattle
• Share images of hope from Kenya
• Explore the relationship between guerilla theater and the prophetic imagination
• And much, much more.

If you would like to contribute a story/artwork or perhaps advertise (a book/conference/gathering) with us, please write toradicalnyc@gmail.com. The next issue will be published in mid-September, and submissions are due by late August. If you know a person, group or community that might be interested in Agape Times, please forward this to them. Also, if you would like to unsubscribe from this listserv, simply reply to this message with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Read full article at The Other Journal

My husband Tom and I live in a small intentional community in Seattle, Washington called the Mustard Seed House. We inhabit the middle floor of a triplex with a young family in the apartment above us and a young couple in the basement apartment below us. We get together at least once a week for dinner and sharing and once more for prayer, and we garden together once a month. We are keen on hospitality and have fun hosting people from around the world.

Recently we received a visit from Noemie, a young French woman researching sustainable community living in North America. She has already stayed with a cohousing community in Washington DC, an old order Amish community in Pennsylvania, and an income sharing commune in the woods of Virginia. She also met with Catholic workers and young Christians from the New Monasticism movement living in an intentional community.

Noemie did not grow up with a Christian background, but since her time in DC where she had opportunity to speak at length on how to live out the Gospel, she has become intrigued by the linkage between community and Christian living. Her recent experiences have convinced her that the only way to live out Christian faith authentically is in community with others.

I agree with Noemie. The pressures of our individualistic, consumer driven culture make many of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, functionally live as atheists. We may pray for a few minutes before we head off to work each morning and go to church on Sunday, but our faith has little impact on how we live the rest of the time. Our daily routines are increasingly not just disconnected from God’s rhythms and purposes, but in competition with them.

For us, as for our secular neighbors, “Normal is getting dressed in clothes you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”

Read full article at The Other Journal

jonnybaker: jesus’ empire of the mustard seed – tom sine is back in classic fashion

Tom (Sine) maps the current new things happening with a mapping of four movements whose edges are blurred and overlap – emerging, mosaic, new monastic, and missional and he is enthusiastic about them all (i agreed with shaine clayborne’s hesitation in the foreword that the book runs the risk of making some of us young tykes look too good, better than the reality – but what a refreshing change!) weaving stories he has gleaned into the mix. he does carefully issue a few challenges on the way – for example he loves the creativity in emerging church but wonders why it tends to get focused on worship and church rather than taken outside the walls. he also wonders if those of us who like the postmodern world haven’t got our imaginations too shaped by the consumer dream of cool – these are great challenges and need to be responded to.

he follows the opening section mapping the new conspirators with conversations about culture and what the future challenges might be. woven into this is a view of god’s future that is wonderfully inspiring. in much the same way as i enthused about tom wright’s book a while back, this book also lays out a vision of a future for the earth that is healed when god’s kingdom comes. one of the things i have always found challenging and inspiring about tom and christine is their imagination. in the face of the consumer culture and the busyness and drain on resources so many of us face they suggest communal responses in relation to housing, resources, and neighbourhood. it takes courage to take these on board, but this is precisely the kind of imagining christian communities should engage in. in fact the last section of the book, taking our imaginations seriously, was definitely my favourite – story after story and idea after idea are laid out so that you can’t help feeling that as tom puts it all of life is a design opportunity to be co-creators with god. at the end of it, because the whole approach is inspired by jesus’ story of the mustard seed where something grows from a tiny seed, you think that even i could do something really really small and see what happens…

Read full review…