Living the Benedict Option #3 – The Call to Covenant Life
By Nathan
Almost 50 years ago, a snowstorm swept through Augusta, GA. It dropped enough snow to completely shut the city down. Not that shutting Augusta down requires a lot of snow. But 14 inches of snow in the Deep South is rather apocalyptic.
That long-ago heavy snow provided the opportunity for a small group of Christians to talk about living the Gospel more intentionally. They were all snowed in together and couldn’t go anywhere. Their kids played outside in the snow as they discussed and prayed more about what God wanted them to do.
Those couples and singles became the founders of the Alleluia Community. That weekend, Bill Beatty (one of the founders) went into the bathroom and wrote down what would become the Alleluia Community’s Covenant with God and with one another.
What’s a covenant?
The word covenant features powerfully throughout the Bible. God made a covenant with Noah. Another with Abraham. Another with Moses. Ultimately, Jesus poured out His blood on the cross to establish the new and everlasting covenant.
A covenant is not a contract. Contracts spell out obligations and penalties. A homeowner’s association might have a contract that says that a person pays dues and gets access to the pool but has to keep their lawn trimmed and their yard clear of old cars or face a penalty.
The language that God uses to describe the covenant He made with the Israelites helps illustrate the difference between a contract and a covenant. “You will be my people and I will be Your God.” The foundation of a covenant is a mutual gift of self. This same pattern is emulated in the sacrament of marriage, as seen in the vow, “I take you to be my wife/husband.” My wife gave herself to me and I gave myself in return.
The Alleluia Covenant was understood to be something more than what people normally find in a parish setting. People come and go at a parish. It’s not uncommon to regularly sit next to strangers at a big parish. After the final hymn, people often race to their cars so they maximize their Sunday afternoons. Relationships in a parish setting can fall somewhere between casual and nonexistent.
The founders wanted more. They desired a community like what they read about in the book of Acts, where people sold everything so they could be a part of what God was doing.
Before I talk any more about the covenant, I’ll let you read it for yourself. The following is the covenant that members of the Alleluia Community freely enter.
The Alleluia Community Covenant.
Jesus is our Lord!
The Lord has called us to make a solemn covenant with Him and with one another to be a people of praise. We accept the Lordship of Jesus in our lives, individually and as a people. He has destroyed our isolation and joined us together.
We commit ourselves fully, subordinate to our primary covenants to marriage, celibacy and the church, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, entrusting our lives to Him and to each other in Him. We promise to build up, exhort, admonish and listen to one another, to be quick to forgive and to ask forgiveness; to assist each other in seeking His perfect will in all things.
In His joy and peace, therefore, we yield our lives to Jesus; everything past, present and future
and we agree to:
- Love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
- Be faithful to our commitments to community prayer, fellowship and service,
seeking always the vision and the growth to which the Spirit is calling us. - Accept responsibility for community order.
- Foster the growth of the community by accepting responsibility for a program of
Christian initiation and formation in community life. - Recognize the headship of the coordinators and agree to obey, correct, and pray
for them. - Accept our financial responsibility to the community.
- Be held to this covenant and to hold one another to it.
We promise to love one another and to call each other to holiness. We believe that this is the way God has chosen for our sanctification. We willingly ask Him to use it. We regard this as a solemn and serious commitment which we enter in good conscience, freely and in faith.
Called to be a People.
One of the first things that you might notice is that in Alleluia, we’re called to be a people. I think of it as a tribe. But we don’t come together simply because we want to or because we think it’s a good idea or for mutual defense. We come together because God called us together.
God is the initiator. Knowing the people in the community as I do, I don’t think that any one of them would be in Alleluia if they didn’t know, deep down in their bones, that God wants them here.
This understanding of a “call” is reflected in the process by which a person or couple joins the community. I say couple because married people join as a single unit. The two become one, and all that. Husband and wife must agree with one another that they are called to community life.
Discerning the Call.
When potential members decide they feel called to Alleluia, they meet with our elders and discuss the possibility. Since a covenant is a mutual self-gift, the elders need to agree that the potential members are called to community… It’s a two-way street. If the elders agree, the potential members will go “underway,” which is a period of mutual discernment.
Underway members live community life fully for at least a year or two. This time period should reveal whether God is really calling them to join Alleluia. Long experience has shown us that some people like the idea of community more than they like the experience of living community life. This is not pride or exclusiveness on our part. It’s just reality that some people don’t like it.
During their underway years, potential members come to prayer meetings, participate in support groups, send their kids to the school, go through a series of teachings, and generally participate in community life. Many will move to Faith Village, though that’s not strictly necessary. Since many people come to Alleluia from out of town, it’s often as easy to move to Faith Village as it is to move elsewhere. It’s also quite a blessing to live within “a cup of sugar” distance of our fellow community members. Close proximity makes it easier to build relationships.
Once the underway members (that’s the term we use for them) go through all the teachings and have spent some time living the life, the elders will pray about inviting them to sign the covenant. Once that invitation is extended, the individual or couple will pray about it and decide whether they will accept the invitation. They don’t have to, and some don’t. It’s a big commitment.
Signing the Covenant
The covenant is more like the vows that men and women take when they enter religious orders like the Benedictines or the Franciscans, but for families as well as singles. When people sign the covenant, they are agreeing to be a part of the community for life.
Over the years, the covenant signing became a ceremony that occurs during the birthday weekend celebrations. It’s actually this coming Saturday, and Mary and I are delighted that some of our dearest friends will be signing. Each year we celebrate the Community’s birthday with several days of festivities. The covenant signing is one of the highlights.
At the covenant signing, the elders introduce the underway members who will be signing the covenant and we have a time of praise and worship. We are a people of praise, so singing songs of praise together is one of the things we like to do best. Then one of the elders or the overall coordinator (the head elder) will give a little talk.
The new members will then sign the covenant and the men receive a white mantle and the women receive a white veil. The mantle and veil are symbols of the covenant. Then each new member shares briefly with the assembled crowd. Then we praise the Lord some more and get ready for a big meal together. It’s a lot of fun.
Called to be holy.
The call described in the covenant is to be holy. Set apart as an alternate society. To be a peculiar people that belong to God. God wants us to love one another and gives us some particular tools to help with that.
The covenant outlines the structure of community leadership and points out the need for obedience from the membership for that leadership to function properly. But this obedience must be freely chosen and cannot trespass the bounds of conscience. Scripture says that we have been set free to experience freedom. The covenant doesn’t violate that freedom.
Living in close community also requires that we be willing to forgive and ask forgiveness of one another. When a group of people lives together for a long time, people hurt one another. By accident, by weakness, sometimes out of ignorance or spite. Without forgiveness and the willingness to seek forgiveness, long-term community life is just impossible.
The covenant also points out that we are all collectively responsible for community life. If this Alleluia thing is going to work, we each have to carry our share of the burden. We commit to financially supporting the community and our school by giving 16% of our gross family income to the community. And we’re called to serve in various capacities to make it all happen. Like a body becomes sick when any one organ stops functioning properly, the Community doesn’t function well if any member isn’t using their gifts.
God wants to use community life to make us holy. We have to participate fully in order for that to happen. Everything written in the covenant points us towards that call to holiness.
A lifetime commitment… mostly.
Signing the covenant means making a lifetime commitment to live and build community. And this happens most of the time. It’s God’s plan for the community. But the reality is that there are exceptions.
For various reasons over the years, full covenant members have chosen to leave the community. I don’t actually know many of the reasons, because we try not to gossip about that kind of stuff. It’s almost always very hard for the family that is leaving and for the members of the community left behind.
While signing the covenant doesn’t have the same sacramental weight as marriage or ordination, it is still a freely chosen commitment to one another. It means something. And when someone chooses to break that commitment, even if the reason is really good and reasonable, it doesn’t change the fact that it is still breaking a commitment. That hurts.
The Covenant – A foundation for relationships.
When asked how many close friends I have, I can easily say about 300. No kidding. I mean people that I have known for ten years or more that I could call up when I’m in trouble and ask them for help. I might have a couple that are my go-to folks, but I know that if I go through my phone list, I’ll find what I need.
I’ve known my best friend for almost 15 years. He was my best man and is the godfather of my oldest son. He’s also the middle school principal at the community’s school. He’s one of the best fellows I’ve ever met, and I’ve watched his children grow up from little mites to full-blown adults. They call me Uncle Nathan.
This is only one example of dozens of relationships that are the fruit of community life. I think it’s very unusual in this day and age. American life moves so quickly. Most people seem to live a few years at most in any one city or state. They often move, chasing some better deal or new opportunity. Every few years, they find themselves facing a new city, finding new friends, starting over from scratch again.
Real relationships take time to form. Lots of time. My wife told me that Aristotle said that to become friends you have to eat a pound of salt together. That’s more than a couple of trips to Wendy’s. You have to waste a lot of time together to get through a pound of salt without killing yourself.
I’ve only been in the community for about 14 years now, but there are members who have been here since the beginning. Almost 50 years. They have gone through all kinds of things together. And they still love one another. More than I can even understand.
One day, maybe after 35 or so more years of living our covenant, I will.
For more stories about living the Benedict Option in Alleluia Community, check out the archive.
To read more about my conversion, check out Demoniac, now available on Amazon.
