This is the second (and last) part of the paper that I've determined will serve as my guide on a quest that Jesus daily live through me. My wife and I are using the paper to live intentional lives.

The Settlement concept. That a group of like-minded individuals, who determine to abandon the American Christian Dream and embrace the life Jesus revealed through His teachings, bands together in community (not a commune!) to use their resources to bring God’s plan for life to a geographic area. Settlement members will discuss, meditate and pray until they reach clear agreement on the actions they will take to expand the Kingdom of God. In the current plan, a reasonably priced plot of land will be purchased, and building projects for small expandable cottages along with a bunkhouse / teaching facility will be started. (Carpenters for Christ or similar organizations can provide much assistance.) Although it is a community, not a commune, in order to leverage the resources each person has, many things will be held in common, and some lifestyle changes must be made. Communal items will probably include: vehicles, vegetable gardens, cooking dinners, building projects, and grounds upkeep. All Kingdom expansion projects are communal, but not necessarily with everyone participating directly. You’ll also need to cut way, way back on the normal time-wasting / life-wasting activities of watching TV, sports, movies, and surfing the internet. (Yes, if you decide to make an impact on the world through The Settlement, you must willingly make lifestyle changes. These changes must be ones you believe in. If you don’t believe in The Settlement concept, you won’t be happy, and conflict will arise.)

How the Settlement will change communities. In order to make process clearer, we’ve created an animation (not completed) which I’ll walk you through. As you’ll see, it is based on a tree’s life-cycle.

- Beginning shot of a seed planted below the soil. Above the ground we see life in America
as it currently is, with lives (trees / environment) stunted and marred by sin. The marred
environment is shown to be caused by bad actions and influences in the soil below the
stunted trees.

- The small area of soil around our seed is saturated by things like studying the Bible, our testimony about Jesus, the consistent testimony of our lives, prayer, good works produced when we begin to live as Christ’s ambassadors, our obedience…

- As the seed begins to germinate, it pushes out the bad influences in the soil directly around it. A more beautiful / productive scene emerges above ground as the soil changes from bad to good while the roots of the tree expand.

- As the tree grows, words on its trunk become visible saying “The Kingdom of God”, and words on its branches show the areas in which The Settlement members believe are the ones God would have them focus on to enlarge His Kingdom. Our good works (see Mt 5:16) in the lives of those in our community are what causes the fruit on the tree to be attractive to others. Once they taste that the fruit is good, they realize the value of the seed (Our ‘one-ness’ with Jesus produced by faith and obedience) and will choose to live with Jesus as their Lord also. With Jesus as their Lord, new believers take that seed of faith and plant it where they live, beginning the entire process again.

Current areas of focus for the first Settlement.

- Dramas. A Christian “It’s a Wonderful Life” focusing on Jesus' life instead of George Bailey's. Peter, watching from afar as Jesus suffered on the cross, turns in anguish to the other disciples and says "It would have been better if Jesus had never been born.". That is when an angel introduces cast members (the woman at the well, the Gadarene demoniac, Zacchaeus, the woman caught in adultery...), planted in the audience, who get up individually and re-enact how Jesus radically changed their lives. , other Bible-based plays

- “The Persecution” - a three day immersion weekend which helps American Christians experience what their persecuted brothers and sisters go through

- Community Outreach. Meeting the physical / spiritual / relational needs of Christians so they begin to feel they can help meet the needs of others; Repairing spiritually / emotionally damaged marriages; Marriage retreat for youth (before they start thinking of marriage), Discipleship outreach which takes a person where they are and shows them that God has provided the solution to any problem they have…i.e. – if they take this action, God promises this result; Project Life which is a program in local schools that uses a simulated life to help students understand how their education and decisions will impact the rest of their lives and transforms them into people who want to learn

- Vulnerable Children. Foster care; those aging out of foster care who still need guidance

- A year-long school that focuses on giving students the skills and spiritual maturity to make an impact in their communities and around the world. (The students will be young adults; post high school age.) It will encompass the construction skills needed to build small / economical housing, how to develop and sell vegetable, fruit and nut gardens, how to operate a commercial kitchen, and data base / web page development… It will focus on spiritual development through books like The Normal Christian Life, My Utmost for His Highest, biographies of people like Hudson Taylor, George Muller, David Brainerd, and those found in “Jesus Freaks”. The spiritual goal will be for the students to know what they believe doctrinally, and to begin living it out as they expand the Kingdom of God. After learning for nine months, the students will spend the next three months putting their skills to use. After the first four months of training, they will spend most of their weekends at churches leading Discipleship Now type programs. They will build cottages which will then be sold in order to fund the next Settlement. School graduates will often become new “Settlers” (Building new Settlements could take several years.)

Below is the first part of the paper I've determined will guide me in how I will live.  It identifies the problem my wife and I see in American Christianity, and introduces The Settlement concept.  The next post fleshes out The Settlement concept.

Moving past learning and talking about God, and living as Jesus’ disciples

After determining that the example of Christianity found in the U.S. and Europe did not resemble the life Jesus said we would live if we were His followers, my wife and I began a quest to find how that New Testament life could look if lived in 21^st century America.  We have selected six sections of the Bible that will provide the framework for our remaining years.  Along with the paper below which details “The Settlement” concept, we believe that if they are intentionally followed, they will satisfy our Creator, and in that process, satisfy us.

Six Scriptures to Guide Us: (Kind of like 'One ring to rule them all.')

It is easy to get distracted by the demands of daily life.  Hebrews 11:6 reminds us where our faith begins: “Anyone who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.”

Since we believe God will reward us when we seek Him, what steps must we take in order to find peace with our Creator?  The most widely known verse of the Bible sums it up.  In Jn 3:16 Jesus says: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then, in Mt 5:13-16, Jesus tells how and why His followers are to interact with the world around them:  “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.  You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.  Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

In Jn 15:4-5, Jesus makes it clear that our lives are like barren grape branches without His on-going presence.  Only when we live so closely connected to Him that His very life flows through us, will clusters of grapes (the fruit from our lives) begin to form on our branch.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

In Mt 28:18-20, Jesus states we are to join Him in changing the world: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Finally, in Acts 2: 42-47, we see that ‘one-ness’ among Christians caused others to believe in Jesus’s message. (See also Jn 17:23)  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…  All the believers were together and had everything in common… They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people...  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

The Settlement

If we are honest with ourselves, we know that the Christian church in America is not fulfilling the mission Jesus left us with.  We aren’t fulfilling the Great Commission.  We aren’t salt and light. People around us aren’t seeing our good works and giving glory to God.  We are not radically changing the communities around us... not even the churches in the Bible Belt! And this is nothing new.  After reading the New Testament, and seeing the impact the early church had in their world, my wife and I have for several years asked ourselves: Why?  Why are our lives and impacts such a pale shadow of the dynamic, purpose-filled, Kingdom-expanding Church of the New Testament? We started asking ourselves: What changes can we make that will begin to expand the Kingdom of God in our community?  

We have come to believe that the root of the problem is that Christians in America have accepted the American Christian Life as the normal Christian life. In it, we spend our resources of time, talent, and money building a life that looks almost exactly like that of every other American family.  We buy the best houses, cars, clothes, vacations, ‘toys’, electronic gadgets and retirement plans that we can afford.  We spend our “free” time watching TV / sports, surfing the internet, playing with the kids, and playing video games or with other ‘toys’. After all this, we are active in our local church as time permits.  To fund this lifestyle we have no option other than to work as hard as we can, for as long as we can, to make the most money we can.  The demands associated with building and maintaining our own little kingdoms are so persistent that we don’t have the time to follow Jesus’ example even if we wanted to.  What we end up with is a life that looks amazingly like every other American, only a bit cleaner and nicer… while the world around us sinks further into decay.  And of course when we die, our kids divide up our little kingdoms to add to their own.  

A life reordered around the commands of Jesus will look remarkably different.  In it, our focus will be on using our resources of time, talent, and money to invest in the world around us in ways that fulfill Jesus’ commands and follow His example.  In it, we will have the time and support system needed to know God, and to start living as Jesus’ disciples.  And of course, when we die, we will hear the words “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world!”

If we believe God is real, that the Bible is true, and that we will live with God eternally, we must change the way we live in order to reflect our belief.   The decisions we make and actions we take must testify that we believe our purpose in life is really to become more like Jesus every day, and to fulfill the mission (Great Commission) He left with us. The pivotal decision each of us must make is whet her we will continue to build little kingdoms for ourselves on earth, or whet her we will unreservedly invest our lives in building the Kingdom of God for eternity.

My wife and I have decided to move past the endless church cycle of learning / talking about God, and begin living as we say we believe.  We have decided to reorder our lives to begin expanding the influence of the Kingdom of God in our area.  Since almost everyone over the age of eighteen has already started down the road in the American Christian Life, how do you make the break from the American Christian Life to the normal Christian life?  As we discussed in the previous paragraph, we believe that it involves reordering the priority of our lives so they reflect what we say we believe. Our plan isn’t the only answer, (if you've discovered a better one please share it!) but we have a way to start.  

Our vision is for a self-replicating movement tentatively called ‘The Settlement’.  It will function like the Settlement referenced in the book “In His Steps”, and also like the early settlements that were on the American frontier.  Both of them were outposts of safety in ‘hostile’ territory. They were places where people lived a different lifestyle with different priorities than the world around them.  Both of them shared what made them different with the people they met.  They were places of community because each person depended on the others daily for support.  Both of them changed the world around them.  And that is what The Settlement will to do.