Celebrating Community

Celebrating Community traces the history of Lee Abbey, a community founded in Devon in 1946. Now a nationwide movement, the community’s mission and calling is to share Christ through relationships, through practising community living, reaching out to others, playing a distinctive part in renewing and serving the church, and developing a deeper relationship with God. What do we mean when we speak of ‘community’? For Christians, community is not an optional extra but God’s intention for his people. It isn’t just a new buzzword, or a good strategy for church growth or a new way of doing church, although it may be all those things. Community begins in the heart and very nature of God, in the three persons of the Trinity relating to each other, and calling us into relationship. It lies at the centre of what we are seeking to do when we come together as ‘church’. But community living is not necessarily easy; it can be a costly adventure. Here, past and present members of the Lee Abbey network share their experiences of the realities of community life – its joys and challenges. Their stories show us in practical and real ways how community living, with all its risks, can truly be God’s gift to today’s world.