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Simple Communities are popping up all over the place…they are part of an underground movement gaining momentum and bubbling up to the surface across Britain, Europe and the Globe

Simple Communities are self-organizing communities of between 5-15 people that meet to Bring+Share and multiply into networks called Tribes…

They Bring+Share food…sharing their meals with generosity

They Bring+Share finance…so no-one remains in need in the group, rather everyone’s needs are met…household bills are paid, fridges are kept stocked up and cars are kept on the road

Simple Communities Bring+Share their Skills, Time and Talents…so that if one amongst them writes songs they will share them with the other members of the community…If another is a trainer or coach they will offer their ability to the rest of the community…If another is a Spiritual Healer they will share their ability in any way that will strengthen other members of the community. One member might be a car mechanic, another a painter and decorator, another a hairdresser, another a chef, another an accountant, yet another a dentist…they all help one another out using their gifts and talents through mutual exchange…

These Simple Communities meet to do all sorts of things together…they meet to eat, tell stories, give gifts and play games…they go out together, watch movies together, or perhaps the football, build houses in broken places together….whatever the people, the Spirit and the situation calls for…

Of course, Simple Communities are as diverse as the people who meet within them…

These Radical self-organizing communities meet anywhere and at any time they choose…in homes, lunchtimes in the workplace, in pubs bars and clubs, in art centres and schools, in cafés and parks, on the streets and in apartment blocks…in fact, wherever life happens, like liquid these communities seep into every nook and cranny of society…

Those who are part of these Communities of 10-15 or so people, meet also in smaller 2/3’s as fellow Pilgrims throughout the week…maybe for a coffee or a pint in the local pub…and they spread the movement to new groups of people so that Simple Communities multiply rapidly whilst changing environments in their wake

These Simple Communities see themselves as extended families on mission…they have a common purpose and are absolutely committed to one another

Some Simple Communities are taking it to the next level and re-inventing Cottage Industries for the 21st Century 

Simple Communities meeting around a common interest or forming micro-businesses…

Examples include Simple Communities who adopt an allotment/small holding to grow their own vegetables…using these as ingredients in their Bring+Share Community Meals…then inviting the whole neighbourhood to the feast, maybe even selling some of the produce and using the finance to reinvest back into their micro-business or to multiply more new businesses…

Other Simple Communities get together to make their own clothes…they make clothing for members of their Simple Community and also for others outside their community who are in need…they may even set up Pop-Up Stores to sell their clothing…reinvesting the proceeds to start-up more social businesses…

SimpleCommunities are based around the ‘Oikos‘. The term ‘Oikos’ is found often in the Bible…it’s a Greek Word that sums up the basic building block of society. The ‘Oikos’ was the ‘Household’, and rather than a limiting westernised unit of husband/wife plus 2.4 children and a dog…the Oikos was an extending family…that included the whole social circle formed around the head of the household…and, as businesses were often family ones, with extended families living together or in close proximity…the Household could include as wide a spectrum as friends, family, work colleagues, relatives, servants, slaves, neighbours…the whole social network…

Jesus had this amazing strategy for launching his revolution into new people groups and places. He trained Pioneers in 2’s and sent them out to towns and villages to look for Key People he called ‘Persons of Peace.’

These Pioneering Pairs were to stay in the ‘Oikos‘ (social circle) of these ‘Persons of Peace’ and share the revolutionary world-changing message with that entire household. The members of that circle would then go on to spread the movement to others throughout the entire village, town, city and into the surrounding regions…

Nobel Prize Winner Muhammed Yunus who founded the Grameen Bank and pioneered Microcredit and Microfinance in Bangladesh used a model remarkably similar to Jesus in spreading his revolutionary idea…

Yunus proved that the poor could be given loans directly by a bank, without defaulting on their payment, through drawing on the ‘Oikos’ (what Yunus called ‘Solidarity Groups‘)…the idea being, a poor woman in a remote village, who was prey to loan sharks and could not get loans from a ‘proper bank’ because she were poor…was given a small loan to start a business if she would gather a small group of other women from her village. These women would support one another and make sure the first woman paid back her loan in monthly or weekly instalments….because if she did…the other women would then also get a small start-up business loan!

Yunus’ model has now inspired similar efforts in 100 developing countries. The ‘oikos’ once again has change the world!

Lydia, a well respected business woman from Greece, sold expensive purple fabric and was the head of her household…when a pair of Pioneers entered her city it didn’t take them long to find her…she welcomed them into her Oikos and was trained in movement practices. Lydia and her household became key activists in spreading the movement into Europe (the movement was called ‘The Kingdom’)

Tabitha, a social entrepreneur from Tel Aviv, made coats and other items of clothing and gave them to vulnerable women in her town. When she became sick and died, her neighbours contacted a Pioneer called Peter, who came to the town and through the power of prayer, brought her back to life….as a result the whole town joined the revolutionary movement that was spreading across the entire known world…

Aquila and Priscilla from Rome, Italy, moved to Greece as self-employed architects of Pop-Up Living Spaces. One day they took in a Sofa Surfing Pioneer called Paul when he came to town. In fact not only did they take Paul into their home…they actually became business partners with him and travelled to new cities to do life, business and train apprentices together as a Simple Community on the move…

Each of these Entrepreneurs had an Oikos that became a Simple Community…a self-organizing community and a cottage industry all in one

As these communities revolved around the ‘sayings‘ and ‘practices‘ of Jesus they were called ‘churches’

‘The church that met in Priscilla and Aquilas’ or ‘The church that met at Lydias’

These churches were not for the ‘religious’…many of them were fashioned specifically for the ‘Gentiles’ (those who previously had no connection with God at all)

In this article i’m not talking about Christian bless me clubs of ‘tired‘ or ‘worn out’ ex-institutional Christians who only meet for self-preservation on a sofa rather than a pew…

I’m talking about a radical movement of non-christiany apprentices of Jesus who play Truth+Dare and form Simple Communities around Bring+Share and turn the world upside down and shape regions through networks of micro-enterprise

We share more on the Oikos as the central building block for creating new solutions in the 7 Spheres of Influence in Society in our new book ‘Kingdom Mission’…

Are you part of this Movement of Simple Communities now rising to the surface in our generation?

Are you starting cottage industries? Micro-enterprises that change the world?