Community Spirit

Shaffer writes how businesses are seeing that they need a community spirit: "At the Quaker Oats pet food plant in Topeka, one production worker's performance deteriorated until he finally made a serious mistake that would have caused some companies to fire him. Instead, three fellow members of his work team began counseling and working with him on a weekly basis until his performance was up to par."

"The founder of Harbor Sweets, a Massachusetts candy company, insists that his diverse work force operates on total trust, with no time clocks, no efficiency measures, and no secrets. Productivity is high because, he says, 'love is good business.'"

"I know this is going to sound sort of hokey, but I work here because of the family feeling.' says a manager at Levi Strauss & Company in San Francisco. After twenty-two years with the company, he cannot imagine leaving."

Tom Peters says, "Those few American corporations that manage to convey a genuine sense of community and belonging to their employees are thriving as a consequence." Max DePree says, "In most vital organizations, there is a common bond of interdependence, mutual interest, interlocking contributions, and simple joy." Shaffer writes, "The ultimate employee-based structure is the employee-owned company, in which people are literally invested in the firm. More than 11,000 American firms have some sort of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), and many also involve employees in running the organization."

Government, businesses, churches and all organizations have a hierarchy. God's way is to diffuse power, not centralize it. If organizations from the family level to huge corporations and governments do not empower those at the bottom, they will fail. The ultimate example is the former Soviet Union and today's North Korea. They are examples of people who can't even feed themselves, let alone compete with their neighbors. Men in leadership positions such as husbands, CEOs or the President of the United States should not be dictatorial, but raise others to be leaders, to allow for mistakes, to encourage creativity, to be friends with their coworkers. Father says that when children grow up they are friends to their parents. Elders must be respected but elders must also respect those under them. True leaders raise people to take their position so they can go on to other things. Leaders have to make final decisions sometimes, but they do so after listening respectfully to others. Mainly, he delegates power and is a teacher and coach. The majority doesn't necessarily rule, but they must feel they are listened to and respected. The focus is on getting the job done, not titles. Warren Bennis writes, "An organization should, by definition, function organically, which means that its purposes should determine its structure, rather than the other way around, and that it should function as a community rather than a hierarchy, and offer autonomy to its members, along with tests, opportunities, and rewards, because ultimately an organization is merely the means, not the end."

The primary community is the family. Parents are supposed to be living with their adult children as extended families. We need to return to the way our ancestors lived. And we need to go forward by living with others of the same faith in privately owned homes and condominiums as Father commands us. The way Americans live now is ridiculous and tragic. In Cohousing the authors write, "In previous centuries, households were made up of at least six people. In addition to having many children, families often shared their homes with boarders, relatives, or servants. Relatives usually lived nearby. These large households provided both children and adults with a diverse intergenerational network of relationships in the home. The idea that the nuclear family should live on its own without the support and assistance of the extended family or surrounding community is relatively new, even in the United States."

Let's grow geometrically

I think that every blessed couple should have at least twelve children. Many women may not want to physically have that many and some may want to but can't. Therefore, each couple should save some of the millions of street kids around the world by bringing them into their homes. We should begin the process of settling down and making roots. Let's say each family had an average of six boys and six girls. Most, if not all the boys, should stay together. Their wives form a school to homeschool the children. If each of the six boys has twelve children then there will be 72 children. The boys build businesses and attract others to live in their community. Pretty soon there would be enough to have a city. With so many people in a few generations they would have their own hospital and theme park. There would be farms to feed everyone and food left over to give to the poor. These communities will inspire the world. Since most of the girls will follow their husbands, they will encourage them to build similar communities. Her six brothers will give money and visit her where she lives to help build a community around her family.

It should be an exception to the rule that boys leave their parents and go live somewhere else. Just think how much less tragedy there would have been in human history if men had lived as trinities. Millions of men have had to fight wars, millions have had to leave to pursue some dream, millions have got sick and countless millions have died leaving women alone to fend for themselves. Recently I watched a video series on the pioneers who came on the Oregon Trail. The suffering of mankind has been indescribable. In one scene the narrator read a passage of a diary of a woman who told of how a few men, including her husband, had gone out to hunt for some animal for supper, and one of the men had an accident and died. When she was told this the woman described in her diary the grief, suffering and terror this woman went through and how terrifying her life had become as she had to go on with her children in the brutal trail that lay ahead. What if there were a trinity? She would have had two men to take care of her.

Sometimes I watch shows of charitable organizations that ask you for twenty dollars a month to care for a child in a third world country. I'll never forget one in particular. The famous TV star, Alex Trebek, was in Bogota, Columbia. In one scene he was surrounded by a dozen boys. It was at night. He said these boys are street kids who have nothing. He then shined a light on a bunch of boys, many just 6 or 7 years old who were all asleep and huddled together. He said he had a coat on and he still felt chilled. The children were in thin rags. You can't help but cry. Let's get these kids into our homes and be their parents. Let's get our kids to do the same. We should work with governments to make it easier to get these kids adopted by families around the world. I met a man recently who was in the navy and he saw in Korea an orphanage run by Catholic nuns. Outside the house there was a small fence going clear around the house. During the night people would give their babies away by putting them in this area. In the morning the nuns would come out and gather up the babies and take them in. Let's get those babies into our homes.

The UC is living as isolated nuclear families in single family dwellings. Before, they lived in communes. Neither one is God's architecture. Formation stage was communes; growth stage is individual homes; completion stage is living together in communities. Stephen Covey in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People divides people's growth into three stages: dependent (to me this would be living in communes), independent (isolated nuclear families), and interdependent (communities).

Now I would like to return to the Second Blessing and give more insights into how we can create ideal marriages and families.

---