The Village is a neo-monastic mega house church nestled in the heart of Tucson. Its unique way of following God is born out of a passion to love our neighbors well by taking them into our lives and homes and serving each other out of the gifts and abilities God gives us collectively and individually. It is the way in which we live out our vision to bring healing to the city, one person at a time.

Neo-monasticism is a Village understanding of community that is different from some classic forms of monasticism. In the past, a monastery was most often a cloistered community that separated from the world in order to dedicate itself to a simple life and communion with God. Those within the walls kept vows in order to maintain community and be disciplined in seeking God. There are certainly modern day equivalents to these ancient communities. Our new form monastery seeks to tear down walls along the lines of St. Patrick’s entry into Ireland for the purpose of the mission of God. We seek to walk among our neighbors and friends as the embodiment of the gospel and live our lives together in such a way that the mission of God is honored. To that end, we choose to engage each other in homes and over meals. The building
God gave us looks a lot like a house. You walk into the kitchen and move easily into the living room. We play songs we have written, hang art that we have created on the walls, and eat food that our own hands prepare, although sometimes the cooks wants a night off so we order in pizza. We have kid rooms in the back and they are always a mess even though we beg them to clean their rooms. There are picnic tables in the backyard along with a playground area complete with swings and a slide. The house is filled with comfortable chairs and couches and we are always dragging them around in order to make it easier to engage each other. It is our home.

We are always inviting people over to the house. We love it when folks show up and we do our best to extend hospitality to them. We are a bit absentminded so we sometimes forget to tell them where the bathrooms are or ask if they’d like a drink or make sure they get some dinner before the kids come back for seconds. We try to respect the millions of diverse opinions and expectations of our guests. We truly want folks to stay and engage and maybe become part of the family even if that means they just want to be third cousins twice removed. We know it is difficult to walk into somebody’s house and feel comfortable, but that is one of our deepest longings.

We are an open monastery, but we do take vows. They are vows of love. We are guided by certain values and we agree to do our best to live them out and to honor God and each other as we do so. These primary values are community, accessibility, authenticity, creativity, truth, and the disciplines.

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