The first time I embarked on forming community, I had just returned from a North American tour of Intentional Communities.  Some of them were extremely dysfunctional and on the brink of collapse.  Others were struggling.  Only a few were thriving and most were the type you see featured on investigative journalism shows: Cloistered, cult-like affairs where men rule and women wear 19^th century clothing.

It was 2012 and Dad had told me that sustainable, intentional community was “the way forward” for the church.  He pointed out that while Christians love to talk about how they will not get the “Mark of the Beast”, very few move beyond words.  I believe that this is mostly due to the “pre-trib rapture theory” which has infiltrated the church, but that’s a post for another day.

It was with the mindset that I wanted to help myself and others say no to the mark, that I purchased a piece of land with a small home on it in Northern Ontario.  My parcel was parallel to a friend’s farm, and another friend owned a chunk kitty-corner to us.  Between us, we had it covered: farming, building, hunting and engineering. One guy even had a dog sled team!

My “guy friend” and I renovated the house, put in a wood stove and prepared to live off grid—after we got married of course.  But the marriage never happened, and after almost freezing to death during a four-day blizzard, I ended up selling the property and my dream.  The upside was that I made a good profit.  Still, it was a loss: of a dream, of multiple relationships and lots of time and effort. I grieved for a good long time.

In 2018, I visited a young community of Christ-followers in a small city an hour from where I lived on the world’s longest freshwater beach.  I call them Christ- followers because they made it clear that they were not Christians–too many atrocities had been committed by people who called themselves that—and I completed understood.  By this point, I was somewhat disillusioned with the church myself, but I didn’t want to “forsake gathering together” as Hebrews 10:25 commands.

I was still searching for my tribe and longing for family, and I visited them one frigid Sunday in January. I absolutely loved their vibe!  They were young and man! did they love Jesus.  The worship was top-notch and the message was relevant. The young Pastor greeted me, not with the usual pasted-on smile but with a genuine interest in who I was.  In our very first conversation, I mentioned that I was moving the following week.  Although it was an hour drive, he promised that “a crew” would help me move.  I couldn’t believe it!

Thirty-five young adults showed up the following Saturday morning and let me tell you, they had me at, “We’re here to help you move”.   They didn’t just move me, they re-designed my living room in a hip new way, they unpacked and organized my kitchen, and they even cleaned my old condo–all with such love and care that I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Where had they been all my life?

A couple of weeks later, I was singing my heart out to some new-to-me songs that the young worship team was playing.  The Pastor turned around and said, “We need you on our worship team.”  “Are you kidding me? You want this old geezer on your team of cool youngsters?”  I was incredulous but it was for real.  That winter, I drove through white-outs three times a week to sing Josh Garrels, Lauren Daigle and Rend Collective, hanging out with these amazing young adults until the wee hours of the morning. Talking and jamming with them, I never for a minute, felt out of place. I was falling in love with them, despite my best attempts not to.

My “attempts” to keep my heart closed up like an oyster protecting it’s pearl, stemmed from the fact that I had been disappointed and hurt in multiple Christian communities over many years. But God.  He had taught me that if I was going to live in the center of His will, I would have to open my heart one more time. I started seriously praying about leaving my tiny, rural community to relocate to their urban sprawl.

Then, quite suddenly, a false teaching crept in.  And why wouldn’t it? After all, they had love down perfectly.  They loved each other, they loved this old gal, they even loved trans people.  What they didn’t do was balance love with truth and the fear of God.  I began to struggle and prayed fervently, asking Dad to help me speak Biblical truth in love as every gathering became another opportunity to endorse and even promote the homosexual lifestyle.  Over the next couple of months, things became increasingly distorted and sick.  Many of the youth began “coming out,” claiming they had been born in the wrong body and demanding to be addressed with strange pronouns.

The last Sunday I was there, the pastor presided over a pulpit draped with the rainbow flag.  I tried to hide my horror as he announced that as a congregation, we would be marching in the upcoming pride parade.  When he invited a couple of lesbians to the stage to marry them, I bolted for my car, where I bawled for an hour before I could compose myself enough to drive home.   I still tear up every time I think about this beloved tribe.

Since then, I’ve experienced two more community breakdowns: One in 2021 that took my lifesavings, my home, my hope and came close to taking my sanity.   When I’m ready, I will write about what happened there and the lessons I learned.  For now, I’m still processing it all in counselling.

One last “community struggle” in 2024 took a piece of my heart and has left me feeling like Christian community in North America may not be feasible.  With that said, I know that Father does not want me to give up on community completely.  In fact, He believes it’s the way forward more than ever.

The bottom line is that we need to boldly face the realities of community, pray for Divine Guidance about how to have “unity in community” and codify that guidance in writing.   I’ll be working on that, once I’m done with therapy, so stay tuned…