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Browse the latest reflections, stories, and updates from the Nurturing Communities Network.
by Andrea Martinie Eiler
by Nancy Gatlin, Hope Fellowship
by Danea Palomo and Roberto Solis/ Saltillo, Mexico
by Luis Rey Matías-Cruz/ Casa de Esperanza/ Oaxaca, Mexico
by Joe Gatlin from Hope Fellowship and NCN leadership team
reflection about the October gathering by Steve Krout, Koinonia Farm
by Chico Fajardo-Heflin, who along with his wife Tatiana, is a member of Reba Place Fellowship and lives in Ford Heights, Illinois, known as the poorest suburb in the United States.
They will be leading a workshop, “An Alliance of Front Stoops,” at the Revolutionary Peacemaking retreat
Reflection on the theme “Revolutionary Peacemaking” for our October Gathering by Debbie Baumgartner, Jesus People Chicago
Reflection on the theme “Revolutionary Peacemaking” for our October gathering by Joe Gatlin, Hope Fellowship
A reflection on the theme “Revolutionary Peacemaking” for our gathering in October by Sam Durgin, Bruderhof
Charles Moore from the Bruderhof shares his thoughts on Christ-centered conflict in the first of essays based on our theme of Revolutionary Peacemaking.
Sally Schneider Youngquist from Reba Place Fellowships shares some reflections from Josh McCallister’s Celebration of Life.
Joe Gatlin, a member of Hope Fellowship in Waco, Texas, wrote this piece for the Shalom Mission Communities newsletter in October, 2021. Just as the newsletter was published, Virgil Vogt, and elder and leader for Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois, passed away after a long bout of Parkinson’s. Virgil visited and ministered to many Christian communities for some 50 years. He served as a mentor to Joe and many others.
Nurturing Communities - Mid-Atlantic Regional Gathering was hosted at Lilies and Sparrows community in Harrisonburg, VA. 51 adults and 24 children from 10 communities and many towns in 9 states gathered on Saturday September 18, 2021.
Is This Pizza Free? by Toby Mommsen
“The Cookbook’s many beautiful stories capture the surprising ways God’s provision and redemption flowed through Moriah Pie and its people. I keep picking it up for another serving.”
The Moriah Pie cookbook is available here
Laura Lasuertmer led this discussion back in February. She invites us to listen in and enjoy the conversation…
Josh Livingston, Housing Specialist at Englewood Community Development Corporation shares his reflections on the roundtable discussion about affordable housing which took place on Friday, February 19th.
Tim Hochstetler, currently at Koinonia Farm in GA and a memeber of the Bruderhof shares an overview of the first roundtable discussion in this blog post: A Merger of Capitalism and the Shared Life: Community Businesses and Christian Community
Joe Gatlin from Hope Fellowship in Waco, TX reviews David Janzen’s new book: Seven Radical Elders: How Refugees from a Civil-Right-Era Storefront Church Energized the Christian Community Movement
This blog was written by Bren Dubay from Koinonia Farm in June of 2020. Here at NCN, we want to continue to assert that, as Bren so aptly has written, “White privilege is a disease. We must always listen and we must always be willing to learn so we can do better.”
Stefan Waligur tells us about the community he is hoping to start next year in Louisa, VA. It will be modeled after the Taize Community in France.
In his article, The Rich Old Ruler: Charles Koch and Repentance, Isaac Sanborn explores repentance, cheap grace and story of the rich young ruler. Original article found here: https://isaacsanborn.wordpress.com.
Isaac Sanborn is part of the Church of All Nations in Columbia Heights, MN. He is a baker who makes artisan sourdough and other delicious baked goods at the Uprising Bread Co. in Minneapolis, MN. Isaac is part of the steering committee for the Nurturing Communities Network.
In this article from The Plough, Rachel Pieh Jones shares her story of finding the church in unexpected places.
“This is where I found myself, among the walking wounded without a protective layer. It was in this state that I found the human church I had been missing, a gathering of hurting and spiritual people.”
The first topic in the NCN fall workshops, Challenges & Opportunities in this Pandemic, was discussed on September 19th and 26th. Here are the videos of the gatherings.
Hine Matov! - Building Community and other Essential Work by Nicolas Melas Febres from the Lilies and Sparrows community in Harrisonburg, VA
The End of All Things is at Hand.... by Joe Gatlin
Joe from Hope Fellowship shares some reflections on living in the midst of pandemic.
“Let’s Help Each Other Breathe,”
“If physical contact keeps us human, what does the future hold?” In this article by Charles E. Moore, he talks about the future which covid19 has presented us with.
This is the final Called to Community Webinar consisting of a panel of folks from four different communities…
This workshop features a panel of people who have recent and current experience in community formation.
Members of the Bruderhof Communities will convey some of the lessons they have learned through the recent unsettled times and find similarities with the historical context surrounding the Bruderhof beginnings in Germany, 100 years ago.
Members of Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana will tell their story of how the 125-year old congregation has found new life over the last 25 years- going from a dwindling mainline church to a vibrant neighborhood based congregation with a strong community development flavor.
“The Cost of Discipleship in Community: God’s Upside Down Blessing.”
This week Fernando Arroyo, Ruth Boardman-Alexander, Nancy Gatlin, and Joe Gatlin will share their personal experiences of both the cost and the blessings of life in Hope Fellowship, an urban, bilingual community of about 70 people in Waco, Texas.
This is a video recording of the first Called to Community workshop featuring Eden. Entitled: “Joy Fueled: Four Stories That Form Our Life in God Together”
A novel coronavirus has brought great suffering to thousands and will eventually reach us all, and many of our communities have or will soon reconsider many of our practices of gathering together and sharing communion in various ways. We live, love, feel and worship in our bodies, and we are becoming keenly aware that we are putting these bodies at risk by our proximity.
The Avian flu, the Swine flu, Ebola, and now the Coronavirus with the possibility of a world pandemic. It’s in the News everywhere, it is unnerving, markets are shaking, people are scared silly that it will strike them and their loved ones.One has only to recall history to realize that global killers have plagued human civilization. But, surprisingly, history also tells us that where death looms large so do acts of love.
During Lent, when we remember Christ’s death, let’s not forget that the Roman Empire executed Jesus as a political threat. As we face into an election year in the U.S., we need to recall the political witness of Jesus, whose central teaching is, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
Rather than giving up something small like sugar for Lent, let’s take up Jesus’ political witness.
My journey in community has been a quest for wholeness and connection, a desire to belong to something beyond myself, and to seek to live a life that is in touch with the Spirit, with my fellow humans, and with the natural world. I believe that we come together in our longing for the wholeness of one another and of all of creation, that everything belongs.
Many of us have individual and family traditions that we practice in advent, but how do communities celebrate this season in their life together?
This month we wanted to highlight how different communities celebrate advent.
This is an excerpt from David Janzen's upcoming book Seven Radical Elders.
I wake up this morning with both a heavy and a grateful heart because my compassionate friend, faithful mentor, best advocate, inspired co-worker, unstoppable imaginer of new projects Julius Besler, is dying.
In 2013 David Janzen in one of his Nurturing Communities missives reported on his visits with several Texas communities. Steven Hebbard, a young, “energetic and creative community organizer,” had taken him outside of Austin and showed him plans for a a new, model community for more than 200 formerly homeless people and volunteers.
Just how difficult can it be to transition leadership of a community from one generation to the next?
Pastor (that is his Spanish name, not his title) is always respectful of the youth who have begun to emerge as leaders in this rural community of campesinos in northern El Salvador who had to flee their country in front of government death squads during the civil war…
Seventeen promises, at least by my count. Steve had made 17 promises by the time the ceremony for becoming a covenanted member of Koinonia Farm was completed.
What a rich time of fellowship was had at the Ohio River Valley Catholic Worker & Christian Intentional Community Gathering hosted the Bloomington Catholic Worker.
Alterna is a small Christian community that has endured tragedy over the recent years, and yet, has sought to hear God’s leading through mourning and grief. Alterna always has had a strong presence with immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Jubilee’s property is a lively and beautiful place—with scattered homes, gardens, pond, animals, a cemetery and a unique carousel—it’s not these tangibles spaces that will endure after several seasons, but rather the stories of changed lives and a peculiar people who lived a life so generous and hospitable.
Josh and Jessica Hearne, part of Grace and Main welcomed us warmly, and after a visit in their home took us on a tour of Danville and the five other Grace and Main households. They told us their story of how they grew out of a simple bible study in which people began asking honest questions about how to be disciples of Jesus in this out-of-the-way, economically depressed, small town.
This past year we had the opportunity to have not one but THREE of our steering committee members featured in an academic theological journal writing on the intentional community movement: Alden Bass, Kent Smith and Charles Moore!

by Joe Gatlin