So I'm really behind on my writing. I'm attempting to fix this situation with a short synopsis of important events in the past month.
The 3rd weekend in February I ventured up to Philadelphia/Camden area with one of my good friends and mentors, Brian Lewis of Common Ground community in Shreveport, LA (www.lvoe.org). I drove up with Brian's friend Drew, a seminary student in the DC area I was pleased to meet and get to know over the weekend.
We got up to Philadelphia and went directly to the Simple Way's Potter Street location in the Kensington neighborhood of North Philadelphia. I was immediately struck by the enclosed, tight nature of the streets around that area of the city. It contrasts dramatically to Center City's wide boulevards and expansive skyscrapers. The tiny row houses were only footsteps from those across the street---community seemed inherent in this kind of set up. Even our close location to our neighbors in DC is nothing like this.
The whole weekend was a series of meeting interesting people. The entire new monastic movement is full of all kinds of characters, Christian anarchists, lots of vegans, lots of dreadlocks and a lot of smokers even. When you really respect a person or a group of people you can more easily accept and believe what they state to be true about the world. Possibly this is a very post-modern trait about me. Regardless, I find myself really immersed in this crowd of people, learning from all kinds of things---from how people greet one another, what they eat, what kind of Bible study we do.....it's all very enlightening....I'm essentially eating it all up.
Friday evening was a big potluck dinner and a worship service by the Psalters (http://www.psalters.com/). Saturday consisted of a lot of round-group discussions. First we did bible study on Matthew 18 followed by group discussions on race in community, gender and God-image (how do we imagine God--mother God?), and power and authority in community (are we afraid to have leaders? should we have leaders?).
It was mind boggeling in someways-----in others simply refreshing.
Many of my coworkers in InterVarsity had their first ah-ha moment of faith and biggest conversion moment in their faith-life thus-far mediated by interactions with InterVarsity. Thus, they find themself where they are. However, for myself, I think it was through the leading, listening and inquiry skills I learned in part from InterVarsity that I found the New Monastic (www.newmonasticism.org) religious movement--that changed my life, faith, and future forever. I come back to this place (camden especially) to be renewed and reminded of who I am in Jesus and what I hope and pray my life will be about.
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