Is this the church we need, this community just being birthed in the rolling hills of southeastern Virginia?
Time will tell, I suppose, as it takes its place on the landscape of Christian living in America.
It is a residential community—or will be—built around common meals and common prayers: “sung prayer, dialogue, and service in solidarity for the purpose of healing and transformation.” I’m sure it means both the transformation of the person and the individual as well as the transformation of a family, a neighborhood, even a nation.
My experience here coheres with their printed desires: “An ecumenical Christ-centered community that demonstrates God’s love in society as a visible and tangible expression of the Good News.” It remains to be seen how their intentions, so carefully cultivated within the community, will work their way out of the isolation of their campus into the wider needs of the world.
Music will be a part of it, for sure. Their founder and leader (Stefan Andre Waligur) is a composer of note with a Taize-influenced interest in simple, singable tunes suitable for their thrice-daily gatherings. He is an oblate of the Order of St. Benedict and thus affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. But much of his training (inclusive of his doctoral focus on songs of lament) has come in the context of Protestant, even Evangelical institutions. This, and stints in India, France, and Ireland, have shaped him in decidedly ecumenical ways.
Community of Peace is one of many residential expressions of Christian fellowship and friendship, many of them affiliated with Nurturing Communities Network. But these represent an old and established way of being Christian, one that gave rise to the most common versions—monasteries and convents.
Other answers to my question—what kind of church do we need today?—abound.
- Storefront churches for the poor and forgotten.
- Multicampus megachurches for the rich and famous.
- The Church Called Tov, pushed by influential scholar Scot McKnight.
- The Micro-Church Revolution! written by Rick Vincent.
- The Church Under the Bridge in Waco, Texas.
- The Times Square Church in New York City
- The National Cathedral in Washington DC
- The transformed Chrystal Cathedral somewhere in Los Angeles
Catholic Churches everywhere gather around the Eucharist, and activist congregations mobilize against abortion or for the ballot. Immigrant congregations fight for survival, and aging churches struggle against gradual decline.
Each week, I join an on-line community drawn from at least a half dozen states—we pray for the soul of the nation and share the common concerns of life and death, love and loss, joy and sorrow. It is one way of being church.
Other churches are taking over entire communities. Check out the Roman Catholics in St. Mary’s, Kansas, or the Christian Reconstructionists in Moscow, Idaho.
Meanwhile, back at the Community of Peace the sun rises over 250 acres of densely wooded land divided equally by the Beaver Creek before it flows into the South Anna River. The light and warmth flow through the wall of glass that overlooks the water and the woods; it fills the room with far more appeal than the sounds of our voices as we read the psalms and sing the simple tunes written by Br. Stefan:
In the light of the morning the love of God fills our hearts.
In the light of the morning, the love of God fills our hearts.
And we shall sing for joy and we shall sing for joy,
And we shall sing for joy and we shall sing for joy.
What kind of church do we need?
When I posted this question now weeks ago, my community responded with many answers:
- We need a new Barman Declaration with its Confessing Church.
- We need a church that lives and loves like Jesus.
- We need many different kinds of churches.
Perhaps. What I know is this: I needed today what the Community of Peace had to offer: music, poetry, and long stretches of silence. Over the next two months, as my son Ike serves as their Artist in Residence, I will find a way to connect with their way of being church.
(August 2021)
