Hi all. This post may sound incredibly scary, but please read on and don't be too frightened (yet!) These are nothing but very early tentative musings...I was just listening to Kitty's Disney album, and on it is a song I think from the Piglet's Big Movie, called A Few Good Friends. The lyrics keep 'nudging' at me in a way that sometimes things can do. This is making no sense at all, so I'll explain...
A few years back, Andy and I heard a guy at Greenbelt (I know, I know - enough with Greenbelt) called Tom Sine. He talked about ideas of Christians living in community. To sumarise his ideas (and completely butcher his book, Mustard Seed Versus McWorld) his thinking is that by sharing resources, people stand a better chance of affording housing, having more disposable income to be generous with and don't have to work every hour under the sun to pay huge mortgages leaving no time for voluntary work or fun. The other bonuses of the idea included shared childcare for families and more of a sense of family for singles.
I think the idea is that everyone sells their homes (if they have them), clubs together and buys either the land to build on, or an existing suitable building. Then each family/couple/individual has their own private flat with all the normal rooms in it, but there are areas for the group to share: a common room/lounge, laundry room, garden, veg plot, dining room etc. They might then decide to share use of cars/computers/garden equipment/babysitting services, have a rota for once a week communal meals or whatever they wanted.
I just wondered what everyone's initial reactions were. I'm not suggesting we do this (at least not formally - tee hee). Just putting the idea out there to see what your immediate reactions are.
Go on then - let's be having it. I tend to be quite an idealist, so do be honest and tell me if you think this is plain crazy, stupidly risky and would never, ever work in a million years...
