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The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis and Life in the Kingdom
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . .
So begins the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' great message to everyone with ears to hear. St. Francis of Assisi heard its message and challenged the church and empire of his day by ordering his life around it--giving up his power, wealth and privileges; claiming the poor and powerful alike as his brothers and sisters; and loving Islamic neighbors even as his church and state waged war on them.
Centuries later, Jamie Arpin-Ricci and his friends and neighbors in the new monastic community of Little Flowers in urban Winnipeg likewise heard Jesus' message and ordered their lives around it. This book is Jamie's field report, offering surprising insights about what life together in the spirit of Jesus' teachings offers us, and what it demands of us.
The sermon still rings out today, offering perplexing encouragement and at times daunting challenges to us and our neighbors. Will you hear what Jesus has to say?
237 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2011
14 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
About the author
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
19 books52 followersJamie Arpin-Ricci is an author, speaker, and award winning bisexual/queer activist living in the inner city of Winnipeg, Canada with his family.
His novella, "The Last Verdict", was inspired by his years of friendship with men on death row. Receiving early praise from activists and best-selling authors, it is a breakout work of fiction.
Author of "Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick" (Paraclete Press, 2015), and "The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom" (IVPress, 2011), he has also contributed to several other books.
Links:
Author's Website
Facebook page
Twitter page
Youtube Channel
Amazon author page
His novella, "The Last Verdict", was inspired by his years of friendship with men on death row. Receiving early praise from activists and best-selling authors, it is a breakout work of fiction.
Author of "Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick" (Paraclete Press, 2015), and "The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom" (IVPress, 2011), he has also contributed to several other books.
Links:
Author's Website
Facebook page
Twitter page
Youtube Channel
Amazon author page
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 5, 2012
Many of my long-time readers may know that I have a long-time fascination with St. Francis and his organic mix of deep Christ-centered spirituality and a true commitment to ministries of compassion and mercy. As many of my friends I have served in ministry know, in the last 5-10 years I have also developed a little bit of a fascination with the Sermon on the Mount, and how it so succinctly and wisely shares about the power of the kingdom of God. So, when a book came along that tried to communicate how a intentional community of Christian disciples integrated these two streams of teaching into their daily life, I knew I had to have it.
The Cost of Community is written by Jamie Arpin-Ricci. Ricci is the leader of a Winnepeg community named "The Little Flowers Community". The community tries to reach out with mercy and grace in a neighborhood that desprately needs the presence of an invested Christian witness. This book, though, is not primarily about the work of this group of disciples in the difficult environment in which they live. Instead, it is about the kind of community God is calling them and us to be as followers of Jesus and St. Francis, combined with some clues on how the people of "Little Flowers" are forming this unique kind of community within their context.
The structure of the book follows the content of the Sermon on the Mount. Ricci takes the sermon section by section. He explores what kind of community Jesus is attempting to form through his words in the sermon. He then talks a little bit about how the values of St. Francis of Assisi modeled the truth of the gospel as taught by Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Throughout this analysis, Ricci shares stories about how these concepts are lived out in the community he leads. Nearly every chapter ends with a chapter or two challenging readers to bring certain values, attitudes, and behaviors into the Christian communities of which they are a part.
The Cost of Community is a neat book. It will be inspiring for many avid Christian readers. I do think, however; that this book can be best used in the following ways.
Read a chapter of this book a week. Ponder it. Think on how to integrate the truths of this book into your everyday life.
Read a chapter a week as an intentional study group. Talk about how you can embody what you learned in each chapter within how your small group does discipleship and life together.
Form an intentional community of disciples that share a common life. Use this to guide you as you create a "rule of life" for your community.
The Cost of Community is written by Jamie Arpin-Ricci. Ricci is the leader of a Winnepeg community named "The Little Flowers Community". The community tries to reach out with mercy and grace in a neighborhood that desprately needs the presence of an invested Christian witness. This book, though, is not primarily about the work of this group of disciples in the difficult environment in which they live. Instead, it is about the kind of community God is calling them and us to be as followers of Jesus and St. Francis, combined with some clues on how the people of "Little Flowers" are forming this unique kind of community within their context.
The structure of the book follows the content of the Sermon on the Mount. Ricci takes the sermon section by section. He explores what kind of community Jesus is attempting to form through his words in the sermon. He then talks a little bit about how the values of St. Francis of Assisi modeled the truth of the gospel as taught by Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Throughout this analysis, Ricci shares stories about how these concepts are lived out in the community he leads. Nearly every chapter ends with a chapter or two challenging readers to bring certain values, attitudes, and behaviors into the Christian communities of which they are a part.
The Cost of Community is a neat book. It will be inspiring for many avid Christian readers. I do think, however; that this book can be best used in the following ways.
Read a chapter of this book a week. Ponder it. Think on how to integrate the truths of this book into your everyday life.
Read a chapter a week as an intentional study group. Talk about how you can embody what you learned in each chapter within how your small group does discipleship and life together.
Form an intentional community of disciples that share a common life. Use this to guide you as you create a "rule of life" for your community.
March 7, 2013
This book challenged me more than I was anticipating. And it was a gift to be so challenged. Jamie Arpin-Ricci brings to life what it would look like if we take seriously the call of Christ in the sermon on the mount and acted like it makes a difference. With wonderful story-telling, humility, and personal reflection, The Cost of Community offers an invitation to follow Jesus through the lens of St.Francis-loving all the earth holds, choosing humility and poverty, and ultimately taking a daring step into the freedom of life in the kingdom.
June 22, 2013
This was a joy to read. The author is part of an Anglican lay order based on Francis of Assisi. While the book is structured as a light commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he interweaves his biblical reflections with both heart-warming and painful stories from Little Flowers Community, intentional Christian community in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
August 13, 2012
Move over, Bonhoeffer...this is the best book about The Sermon on the Mount that I have ever read!
January 6, 2012
Is it really possible to live the Sermon on the Mount? Figures as significant as Leo Tolstoy have debated this throughout history. Jamie Arpin-Ricci, who has formed an urban, Christian Community, the Little Flowers Community in Winnipeg, thinks we can. The book is a report structured around the text of Jesus sermon, tracing how this community has practiced the beatitudes, learned the blessings of poverty, practicing peace-making, seeking justice and living in humility rather than judgment with each other.
One quote to give a flavor of this book:
For each one of us and the communities we are members of, we must realize and accept that humble obedience to Christ always costs us something, usually dearly. The way of Jesus, without exception, calls us to live apart from and against the ways of the world--a way of life that will invariably be costly, dangerous, and even the cause of societal (or even familial) alienation and rejection. If our lives fail to reflect this costly obedience, it must serve as a red flag of warning that we are living outside of the will of God. After all, the way of Christ must by necessity lead to the cross, and it does so daily.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. The author believes we have focused far too much attention defining our doctrinal and behavioral boundaries, and far too little in seeking to practice the way of trustful obedience to which Jesus calls us in the sermon. And as he repeats so often throughout the book, "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy."
One quote to give a flavor of this book:
For each one of us and the communities we are members of, we must realize and accept that humble obedience to Christ always costs us something, usually dearly. The way of Jesus, without exception, calls us to live apart from and against the ways of the world--a way of life that will invariably be costly, dangerous, and even the cause of societal (or even familial) alienation and rejection. If our lives fail to reflect this costly obedience, it must serve as a red flag of warning that we are living outside of the will of God. After all, the way of Christ must by necessity lead to the cross, and it does so daily.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. The author believes we have focused far too much attention defining our doctrinal and behavioral boundaries, and far too little in seeking to practice the way of trustful obedience to which Jesus calls us in the sermon. And as he repeats so often throughout the book, "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy."
June 1, 2021
This is yet another book on the Sermon of the Mount—but I’m certainly not complaining. We Jesus-followers have an awful lot of work to do to grow in the way Jesus taught us.
So what makes this particular book unique? This is part autobiography and part examination of the life of Francis. Arpin-Ricci takes the reader through the SotM with great reflections on the teaching. These reflections find their roots in both life experience from a community dedicated to living among the poor, and the model for this approach as seen in the life and ministry of St. Francis.
The book had many new little ways of “turning the gem” of a well-known passage and seeing it through another light, as well as great challenges to what it means to truly live as people driven by Jesus’s teachings.
So what makes this particular book unique? This is part autobiography and part examination of the life of Francis. Arpin-Ricci takes the reader through the SotM with great reflections on the teaching. These reflections find their roots in both life experience from a community dedicated to living among the poor, and the model for this approach as seen in the life and ministry of St. Francis.
The book had many new little ways of “turning the gem” of a well-known passage and seeing it through another light, as well as great challenges to what it means to truly live as people driven by Jesus’s teachings.
March 26, 2012
If you want to go beyond theological speculation to living out the Sermon on the Mount then you need to get this book. Read it. Live it. Jamie Aprin-Ricci weaves together the life of St. Francis, the Little Flowers Community and his own life to help us honestly wrestle through what it means to follow Jesus in our world today. His vulnerability is refreshing. If you read this book carefully, and reflect on how Jamie and his faith community are following Jesus, you will soon realize that while the cost of discipleship is great, the cost of non-discipleship is even greater.
December 19, 2012
Any book that seeks to combine the Sermon on the Mount, the life of St. Francis, and living in community is an ambitious undertaking. Overly ambitious maybe, as whole books have been written just on the Sermon on the Mount, or just on St. Francis, or just on living in community, yet these three streams come together very well in this book.
For a more complete review, please see http://aprilyamasaki.com/2012/10/04/t...
For a more complete review, please see http://aprilyamasaki.com/2012/10/04/t...
October 25, 2012
Great book on intentional urban community, living like Jesus in that community, and learning from your neighbors while doing it!
April 1, 2013
Excellent book on community and a great exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. Thank you Jamie for this gift to the church!
January 25, 2015
This is another e-book I picked up on my phone. I largely picked it up because the author belongs to a community in Winnipeg, my wife's hometown. The book is written in the new Monastic tradition- a movement which is re-claiming a near-monastic experience in the urban 'deserts' of North American/Europe. On the whole, I'm sympathetic with the movement, especially with the social justice aspect which is superb. I do find the occasionally all-or-nothing tone a little off-putting. There are different calls in the Christian life and I'm not sure that we are to judge which call is purer than another. That seems God's job.
This book, as the title indicates, has a rather Franciscan feel to it, which is good. Arpin-Ricci combines the gentleness and zeal of Francis in his writing which is also to the good. Much of his discussion centres on unpacking the Beatitudes which he argues are needlessly spiritualized. He notes that they are much harder hitting than the way that many Christians assumes. He's right, of course. If one spiritualizes the call to help the poor, orphaned and oppressed out of the Beatitudes, not much is left. Yet, I'm left with wondering if both interpretations can be held in tension; whether we take the Beatitudes as ways to develop our spiritual lives and as a guide to how we behave in regard to money and the poor. I think Arpin-Ricci ins't adverse to that, but that doesn't necessarily come out strongly.
This book is worth the read, if only for the exegesis of the Beatitudes which is bracing. The interwoven stories from north end Winnipeg are grim, but put flesh to the discussion. Well worth reading.
This book, as the title indicates, has a rather Franciscan feel to it, which is good. Arpin-Ricci combines the gentleness and zeal of Francis in his writing which is also to the good. Much of his discussion centres on unpacking the Beatitudes which he argues are needlessly spiritualized. He notes that they are much harder hitting than the way that many Christians assumes. He's right, of course. If one spiritualizes the call to help the poor, orphaned and oppressed out of the Beatitudes, not much is left. Yet, I'm left with wondering if both interpretations can be held in tension; whether we take the Beatitudes as ways to develop our spiritual lives and as a guide to how we behave in regard to money and the poor. I think Arpin-Ricci ins't adverse to that, but that doesn't necessarily come out strongly.
This book is worth the read, if only for the exegesis of the Beatitudes which is bracing. The interwoven stories from north end Winnipeg are grim, but put flesh to the discussion. Well worth reading.
March 2, 2016
I have now read this gem of a book 3 times, and each time I find something new to challenge me. This book has seen me in tears as I know that God has spoken to me through the pages of it. Its brought fresh revelation and challenges. Some of which have been uncomfortable. And for that I'm thankful. Its pages are scattered with underlines and notes on what I was thinking as I read what can only be described as seeing in print what my heart was already saying. This family and community are the real deal. I would be so bold as to say every follower of Christ should read this book.
January 18, 2012
Interpreting the Sermon on the Mount through St. Francis and Jamie's Christian community. Quite good.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews