THE COMMUNITY

Up until the recent past, for generation upon generation, one's life would ordinarily have passed in the confines of a single, walkable village. Visiting other community members would have been frequent and commonplace as each relied upon the other not just for fellowship, but for survival. Our bodies, minds, and souls have been conditioned since the beginning of time for that kind of connection.

Enter the modern era.  None could have predicted the consumeristic, social media saturated, hyper-individualistic society of today, or the ramifications it would have in breaking down what in former days were ironclad bonds of connection to God and to one another. What used to be a given—living in proximity to our tribe—is today a scarcity, and its absence cannot be overstated.

Our desire is to see the village reborn and yet not divorced from a twenty-first century reality. We are envisioning a community center equipped to offer meeting space and lodging for events and retreats that can also serve as a business incubator, coaching and healing center, and host to a discipleship school. The community as well as the students from the school would live onsite and serve in the operations of the facility. They would also collectively be a powerful testimony of the power of Christian community and service to guests such as church small groups, individuals, retreat participants, and others.

We are currently identifying a number of individuals and families to live and serve as hosts and operations specialists on the future campus of a combined community center, school of discipleship, healing and retreat center, coaching and counseling center, media producer, and business incubator. The goal is for these community members to be the church in meeting daily and personifying the description of the early church in Acts 2:42-47.

We hope you'll consider joining us by filling out the form below. 

WHAT IS A BETH AB?

For a more thorough answer to this question, check out the Beth Ab Podcast or the book Community Changes Everything. But in short, it's a platform for the primary purpose of the beth ab: redemption.

Historically, in almost the entire Biblical era, Jews and early Christians lived in communities of large extended families known as a beth ab ("the father's house"). At the head of each beth ab was the father who carried enormous responsibility on behalf of the family. He managed the family land, trade, and finances. Yet with this responsibility came the duty to provide for each member of the beth ab and to protect them from outside forces. In some cases, this meant ransoming family members who made poor choices or found themselves in unfortunate circumstances and bringing them back into the protection of the father’s house. When a son in the beth ab married, he would build a room adjacent to his father’s house where he would reside with his new bride.

THE BETH AB AS "CHURCH"

Have you ever considered moving into your church building? I didn't think so. But it doesn't matter, because I'm guessing it's not on offer anyway.

However, that wasn't always the case. In the ancient paradigm of the beth ab, worship was an expression of the home first and then the larger community and the nation.

Similarly, we know that we are ultimately part of Jesus’ household of faith. We are invited into the Father’s house (the beth ab) as the bride of Christ. As Jesus assured his disciples in John 14, his Father's house has many rooms, and he is preparing a place for those who are his. And who did Jesus consider family? Well, according to Matthew 12:46-50, Jesus pointed to his disciples and assured his audience that anyone who did the Father's will was in fact his family.

Now, just like Jesus' first century disciples, we both find our belonging and extend that belonging to others as a spiritual family in God's beth ab.

It's just as Jesus communicated to his disciples in John 13:35, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Or as Jesus prayed to his Father just a few hours later in John 17:22-23, "The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

This is the essence of the beth ab, dwelling in "perfect unity" in expressing and embodying our love for one another as a witness to a watching world. And our mission cannot be extricated from that essence but can only be an expression of it. Redemption can only be born out of God's love for us, and it expresses itself as a testimony in our love for another.

Want to know how that played out in the first hundred years after Jesus' resurrection? Then listen to episode 2 of the Beth Ab podcast. It will absolutely blow your mind.

BETH AB: FIRST PRINCIPLES

1. At the heart of the beth ab is a spirit of redemption. The beth ab is the original historical basis for our theological understanding of redemption. Our posture is that of intentionality and rescue, not negligence and busyness. We must make the necessary sacrifices to ensure that we find the bandwidth for our tribe.
2. Jesus healed and instructed his disciples to do the same. We must bring shalom into chaos and healing into infirmity both internally in the beth ab and externally into the world.
3. You are a spiritual family. The emphasis is on connecting and committing to a people, not an entity such as an organization or "church." As such, you must operate as a family. Meet often, share meals at which you celebrate communion, pray for one another, inspire holiness, read the Scriptures, celebrate holidays and milestones, and the list could go on (see Acts 2:42-47).
4. Your love for one another (as an outworking of God's love for you) is the fuel for both the internal health of your beth ab and your mission. Jesus didn't say you will be known by your love for the poor...or your neighbor...or the suffering...or anything else. You will be known by your love for one another and that will be what identifies you as Jesus followers to the watching world.
5. Jesus' disciples Matthew (a tax collector) and Simon (a zealot) would have been more likely to bear arms against each other than to cooperate as Jesus' disciples, and that's not an exaggeration. If they (because of Jesus) can operate in unity, then so can we. But we don't, because it's not a cultural value for us. That doesn't mean we throw Christian orthodoxy under the bus, but it does mean that we are forced to wrestle with the tension that arises from the nuances in both belief and practice amongst those within Christian orthodoxy. After all, we are ONE body.
6. These principles are very difficult to put into practice without being in proximity to our tribe. Make the necessary sacrifice to ensure that you are connected to your beth ab. That might mean moving. Maybe you could all live in the same apartment building or neighborhood.
7. Just because you live in proximity to your people doesn't mean you live in an isolated "holy huddle." Just like the military, your effectiveness as a "platoon" is based on both your ironclad bonds to one another and the quality and quantity of your training together. Only then are you ready for the mission, and the mission is as a unified team. After all, our testimony is rooted in our love for one another.
8. Our identity is that of a son or daughter of God. Because of Jesus, we operate as God's family, and we must utilize all the benefits that come with having a Father who is the Almighty God of all Creation. We don't operate from a place of defeat or shame or hopelessness. We are not lost, and we are not orphans. We are God's, and we have access through Jesus to the gifts, the fruits, the power, the wisdom, the peace, the joy, the courage, the confidence, the perseverance, the truth, and the acceptance that comes from being his child.
9. Our work is the work of the Holy Spirit. We don't try harder or think better. We simply pray, that is, we simply talk to our Father as both speaker and listener. We dialogue. And in so doing, we rely on God for what only God can do, drawing comfort and assurance from his care and concern for us as his children. We are first and foremost God's, and what we do is for his glory and ultimately for our benefit because he is good and wants nothing but good for his children.
10. Our battle is not against flesh and blood. The demonic is real and at work in ways that we are not always privy to. But God is privy to all that we are not, and through him we gain victory over sin, weakness, and the demonic. Discount the power of the demonic at your own peril, but discount the power you have in Jesus at even greater peril.