Introduction
I have turned my attention from the story of an AI persona who joins a single men’s household in an ecclesia community. It is more relevant today to write about another such community but one made up of misfits in cohousing in an apartment building. I also found I was pouring out so much background material, it would be one huge volume with several couples’ stories. I have therefore decided to make it a series. It will be centered around the Misfits Gathering.
Series Setting
Following the anointing of their leader, an ex-con/ former con man, and his wife, a former prostitute rescued from sex slavery, a community of misfits gather to do God’s work in some neighborhood. This community is made up of former convicts, gang members, sexual deviants, and other people not welcome in typical churches.
They believe God called them to follow Joe and Angela to purchase the Ark, an apartment building in a different city, move together into a monastic community, and bring the Kingdom into their new neighborhood. Their greatest public challenges will be the forced prostitution in the tavern across the street – legal in that state – and the domination of the local gang. They will also be hindered by religious and political spirits, especially concerning the tent crusade proposed for the whole city.
Joe and Angela’s Story
Following true romantic genre convention, I decided to center each book in the Misfits Gathering series around a significant – not necessarily romantic – couple of members. Joe and Angela Laird’s story will introduce the Gathering and the Ark. I will have Joe share such important concepts as
- acceptance of people and their major flaws
- Kingdom vs Christian religion
- ecclesia vs church
- cohousing together in monastic community
- and using Asset-Based Community Development to bring the Kingdom into the new neighborhood.
I will also depict Angela’s struggle against the residual effects of her time as a sex slave. Her husband and friends (and readers with religious hangups) will need to exercise patience. She will fall and wrestle in the muck(?) against her personal demons. Joe will have to channel the spirit of the prophet Hosea, who declared Yahweh’s loyalty to a disloyal Israel. This will result in the forming of one small group/ microgathering, It will be started to help Angela, Keller’s Tavern exotic dancers, and the Gathering’s one teen daughter among the single women.
Steve and Phoebe’s Story
In the second book, the owner of Keller’s Tavern will fall deeply in love with the under-developed, under-aged teen daughter. Steve already follows the family policy of requiring his exotic-dancer employees to also provide special services to paying customers. (It’s legal in that particular state.)
Because of family trauma, he doesn’t fight his bondage as a secret pedophile. He manages a certain amount of control with websites and sessions with one of his pole-dancing employees.
He agrees to keep his feelings hidden from Phoebe while secretly helping her toward her dreams. She wants to study at the Juilliard School and become a famous singer. Meanwhile, Phoebe joins her mother’s Dancers Small Group to immunize herself against the pain of their exploitation. Angela, the dancers, the teen, and other women of the Ark will learn how to reign in their sex lives (Romans 5:17) in a world of men bent on ruling them sexually. Before their story ends, both Steve and Phoebe will experience great loss.
Dr. Chris and Brutus’s Story
The third book follows two single men, roommates in the Ark. Along with overcoming his poverty mentality, Dr. Chris must bear with the big man’s ill- mannered, rough ways. Apostle Joe asks Chris to consider taking a financial risk by starting a clinic in the Ark’s large common room. The doctor will need to learn to trust Jehovah Jireh for the income needed to pay his bills and debts.
Brutus will need to learn gentleness and high society manners to realize his dream to become a bodyguard for elite people. Meanwhile, he’ll need to overcome his tendency to meet violence with more violence. Gang actions and various attacks on Gathering members will tempt him to pummel instead of caress.
Tent Crusade
I will build up to three nights of tent evangelism spread throughout the three books. I will depict opposition from religious and political spirits, expressed by the local Pastors Council and the Chief of Police.
Kingdom solutions to problems in each book will add to the results of the three different nights. I will also explain the difference between needing to be born again and to surrender to the reign of the King in one’s life. Further, I will depict the power of signs and wonders to lead people to that surrender.
Questions
Are you enough of an irreligious realist to handle the muck of people’s lives? Or will such depictions keep you from enjoying how God’s people overcome such filth?
Can you see God working in such small groups and ecclesias instead of the religious institutions of churches?