Culpeper House

“Rule of Life” is a term borrowed from the long history of Christian monastics. Essentially monks and nuns agreed to certain things as part of living in community–i.e. celibacy, silence, prayer. These rules vary from community to community.

Developing a Rule of Life is a long and evolving process. Here are a few highlights of our current Rule of Life for our community:

Active Love - Actively seeking to love one another, our neighbors, and enemies in real tangible ways.

Shared Meals - We believe that breaking bread together is not simply an important aspect of community, but is the half of the eucharist most often forgotten. As such we often share meals together. We have scheduled house dinner on Tuesday evenings (it’s just the folks living in our community and sometimes a couple other folks we invite to get to know better) and a large community meal on Wednesday evenings which tons of people come to each week, it’s less intimate, but still a lot of fun. Everyone who lives in our community pays into a common purse for meals–if it’s in the refrigerator or cupboard it’s yours to eat.

Hospitality - We often host out-of-town guests or folks who need a temporary place to stay. We also love having visitors come and talk with us about what this whole “intentional Christian community” thing is.

Conflict Recognition and Resolution - It’s often easy to ignore the fact that there is conflict. We are dedicated to acknowledging conflict between members of our body and resolving it along the lines of Matthew 18.

Prayer - While it is not uncommon for us to have impromptu prayer together during the week, we have an informal prayer time Sunday evenings.

Sharing in Joy and Suffering - We are dedicated to sharing our lives with one another. If someone in our community is sad or grieving, we desire to come alongside them in that, if they are joyful we want to share that too. We also seek to share in the joy and suffering of our neighbors and friends.

Flexibility, Grace, and Service - Living in community has it’s highlights (and they are absolutely incredible), but often it is just plain difficult. The house is often messier than many of us would like. We have to share a lot of things so often you don’t get what you want, when or how you want it. And let’s face it, at times people just get on your nerves. Living in community is a daily excercise in self-sacrifice and learning to put the needs and desires of others over one’s own.