God opened our eyes because we wanted them to be open...

Over the next couple of weeks I’d like to take some time to introduce you to the folks who are participating in our year long program, Dwell. Our Dwell program seeds intentional Christian communities where young adults can put their faith into practice by living together, serving the neighborhood in which they live and creating a routine of spiritual disciplines. The majority of our Dwellers are local folks who are either working or are in school and are creating the space in their lives for exploring their faith, developing deep relationships and being a neighbor as described in the Bible.
Maribeth is a member of the Grant Park Dwell community house. She works at a school that is down the street from our house. Here are some of her reflections on living in community.
~Jannan Thomas, DOOR Atlanta City Director


“I wanted to live in intentional Christian and the Dwell house because it just made sense. I had lived in big groups of people, missionally, before, and that is when life made the most sense to me. It was when I was living in community that I felt the church was being the church. When we, as Christians, struggled and worked through our lives together.
There is a lot of maturity in our house. There is not a lot of drama. When I lived in India, I lived with people who were all younger than me and I had to play the mother figure a lot. They didn’t know how to handle conflict and it was a very high school drama situation. In the Grant Park Dwell house it seems like a whole new ballgame with adults. Sometimes it is hard for me to live in community because I am a people pleaser. But the reality is that people are different and they have different opinions sometimes. So, just working through how to disagree with people has been hard for me. One of the things I feel like I have learned so far this year is that the Lord does not have to prove himself. The Lord is who he is. I don’t have to debate that or argue that or try to prove that. God has definitely taught me that. God’s word, God’s sword, is enough. We don’t have to cut people ourselves. The Lord does that through his Word if that needs to happen.


Sometimes it is hard to do as much in the community as we really want to do. But, I live with people who really care about their neighbors and it is nice. Chief crazy hair is our neighbor (he introduced himself to us as that). He is a 96 year old man who lives in a beat up house down the street. We made muffins to take to neighbors and we met him. He doesn’t have any family; he can’t hear, can’t see, and his house is falling apart. I think that meeting him is God’s way of opening up a door for service for our house. People that come home and don’t know their neighbors would not have the chance to meet someone like that. But because we want to meet our neighbors, we have. More opportunities will come up to love him and to serve him. So, far we’ve just brought him muffins, thanksgiving dinner plate and invited him to our Christmas party. But I feel like if I weren’t in this Christian community that connection would not have been made. But because we are intentionally trying to love our neighbors, we have stumbled upon this opportunity. God opened our eyes because we wanted them to be open.”


~Maribeth, Grant Park Dwell House community member