It's a Beautiful World, and We're All Here

As mentioned in the last post, I wanted to follow up periodically on the Yellow House's DTR journey. Defining-the-relationship and figuring out what it means to live into what we feel we've been called to. Talking and dreaming and proposing and shooting down and hoping that with little steps here and there, we'll move out of just being "residents" in a house "our friends bought us" but will grow into being a community. A home. For more than just rent-payers and meeting attenders. But for the family down the street. And the congregation meeting across town. And the guys that live next door.

So. Here's an update.

Our first three things to move toward were these: weekly house meetings, weekly meals, and Sunday teachings.

Once proposed to the tenants and the core, we decided that "weekly meetings" would be the name of something we'd show up to with our legal pads and rushed agendas making us anxious to get to the next thing on the list. So we nixed that title. And changed the name to pow wows. And decided (Carrie decided) that it would be mandatory that every week, resident/core pow wows would be held under a tent. In our foyer. Made out of sheets. And we decided that this would be a "very important" and "very serious" tradition. We also realized, in this decision, that we may very well be laying the foundation for many others and their stories to follow behind. To live in these rooms. And love on this neighborhood. To unearth the age-old vibrancy of early-church community. And quite frankly, we could have some fun with it;) And 10 years from now, 20-somethings will be tying up sheets across the banisters on a Wednesday night, once again, saying, "....now why do we do this?"

If we're not laughing, we've forgotten something important.

Also realized in this week of conversations, was that putting work into a foundation is hard. Moving into a vision that someone else has already created, built up, broken down, and refined into sustainment is ideal. Foundation is not. We're having leveling work done on the house, and it seems like a nauseatingly large amount of money to go towards something we'll never see. But it is essential for anything else to be built upon it. People who start things face an incredible risk of either laying a foundation or plummeting and taking all those they drew in along with them. They also are required to work triple time. In what they're already doing. In what they're trying to build. And in figuring out what the details look like soon enough to talk about it but not rushed enough that it isn't allowed to grow a life of its own. Makes us think about the early church, and all those communities since then who have attempted an against-the-grain livelihood where we believe that we belong to one another and that God is teaching us something collectively for the sake of a restoration at large.

That good news is this: that we are not in fact "starting something new" in the world. That was done a very long time ago. We are simply starting something new in our worlds. Begging for a system to make decisions about money given to the Yellow House, desperate to figure out a schedule that is freeing and not more packed, and wanting the Spirit to make a few things start clicking so that we know we are not just making this up, but that we're going somewhere.

And, ya know what? They kinda felt like they were underneath those old blankets that were tied at the tassels in our foyer last Wednesday. It is a beautiful world, and we're all here. What will we do?

There, we passed around the Bible and read a verse a piece from Hebrews 10 until we had scooted around the whole chapter. How real it is to hear scripture read out loud and together. As if we're not just saying fluffy, Christianese things. But we're unpacking something raw and applicable.

We laughed about that dumb cat that half of us love and half of us are freaked out by who lives on our back porch but thinks she lives on our front. Actually, she thinks she lives inside. She is terribly mistaken. We talked about thoughts a few of us had had for the house: like putting in sound equipment for teachings and house shows, building shelves in the office to make a YH library that people can check out of, inviting older women over for tea, and building a prayer mailbox for the road so that neighbors can put things in for us to pray about when we get together. We shook our heads and laughed at Grant when he said something inappropriate (because we're real people and not fake, churchy, robots) and we talked about Sunday teachings starting in October where people can come at 4 to hang out, learn, talk, play music, and stick around to eat afterward if they so choose.

We discussed what we need to know when those in need come to our doors but would be best helped by one of our partner ministries and how we need to be educated about our city. We talked about evacuating the pigeon and her babies from the second floor porch because they're pooping everywhere. And I watched a House episode once where pigeon poop was poisonous...and whereas I have been told I am overreacting and that it takes growing and consuming plants in ample amounts of pigeon poop to become poisoned...I'm not risking anything. Until those birds pay rent, I believe they can find a different living situation.

We prayed for our neighbors down the street who have had to make very difficult decisions this week and are starting the long journey of grieving the unexpected loss of a loved one. And we asked God to give peace and time for healing. And to make us available for shoulders, couches, coffee, words, and no words.

And we're seeing it, little by little. We're seeing it in our talk about freedom and in our efforts to paint a painting for the hallway that says "There's freedom for..." and paint bold printed words like "pornography" "hoarding" "abuse as a child" "legalistic theology" "substance addiction" "getting attention by exaggerating" "unhealthy conflict" "grudge holding" "pride" "gossiping about those closest to you" "depression" "our pasts" etc. We're seeing it in our talk about encouragement and how we, as followers of The Way, are great about calling out but could give life if we spoke encouragement every time we thought it. And even if we weren't feeling it...we can pretend, then that becomes habit, then that becomes character. And that process is not by chance. And we're seeing it when we pray to be people who believe in life because we continue to experience it and therefore give it; who believe in freedom because we continue to be set free over and over and over again and therefore can put stock in it. As we pray that this house, and the community of people that God is rounding up all over the city in a thousand little pockets, can be a light on a hill. Not simply pointing towards the hope of the world, but living among Him.

Believing that Jesus taught us how to die, but after He taught us how to live. Fully, freely, unbound, owned by nothing else, together with people, for the sake of something bigger than any of us.

So if you drive by a bulky, yellow house on the corner of Dalzell and Gilbert at 8:30pm on any Wednesday, look for the sheets that make a tent in the foyer. And dare to dream with us what might be happening in our city.

Hope to see you the first Sunday in October at 4pm! Or, ya know, any other time you'd like to stop by:) We've got wireless now (ahh!!) so our house is your house if you'd like to come do work there.

Stop by soon, especially if you know how to evacuate pigeons,

Britney