Tom Sine - A Call to a Pre-Industrial Village?

Thursday night I went to see tom sine speak. I've been a big Tom Sine fan for a while have 3 of his and Christine’s (his wife) books, and have often quoted passages in talks I’ve given. It was a little disappointing that the night was more of an intro tom Sine than a now you’ve read the book kind of talk. Probably the hardest thing was looking at the four types of "new conspirators" and realising I wasn’t even close to being one of them. The four types (with examples from Tom) are.

1. Emerging. Tom described this mostly in terms of groovy inner city types coming out of the alternative worship (I’m pretty sure the U.S emergents would consider themselves much more diverse than this) eg: Johnny Baker, Prodigal Project, emergent village.
2. Missional. eg: Lesley Newbigin, book "the missional church", Forge, Allan Hirsch. Often the groups have a worship time and small groups and no other programs for people in the church.
3. Mosaic. Multicultural church planters eg: the church "sanctuary covenant" and the book "the hip hop church"
4. Monastic. UNO, the book "companions with then poor", Viv Greigs, Word made Flesh, The Simple Way, Shane Claiborne and Camden house. Where people live on the same economic level as the poor.

The way I see these four is...

1. Emerging. I'm not sure if Perth has one and I'm not sure if I quite got Tom's definition (i'll have to read the book).
   
2. Missional. There are a couple of conscious missional things I know of in Perth in Brighton and Banksia Grove.
3. Mosaic. I don't think this exists in Perth .
4. Monastic. Perth's Peace Tree community is probably the only community Perth has like this.
   

The problem I have with these four types of community are...

• I can't afford to be a part of these communities, especially 1 & 2. Even the 4th one can be hard as the rent in some "poor" suburbs in Perth is more than the mortgage I am paying at the moment, and I'm not keen to get a job which is just a money job.
  
• It can be harder than it needs to be for others if they become Xn, when it involves being part of one of these communities.
• I already have too many people in my life and these communities would be adding more.
  
• People are slippery and move on. So what happens when people move out of the communities?
  

I can't help but think that all of the four models work on the basis of a geographical community of some sort and by default a desire to be part of a pre-industrial, pre-urban sprawl life. I’m not in a community in the above four senses. I’d love to be but I feel like I would be spreading myself too thin and would have to give other things up.

Below is a quick picture I drew representing many of the significant people and communities in my life.

As you can see it's a friggin' mess. I link with people from school four different work places including my current one, church, uni, school, various networking groups. On top of this there are clients I meet through work and people who I am trying to connect with in my local suburb (which at the moment is proving difficult) and people through the web. My relationships with people non Xn and Xns alike tend to out last the community in which they start whether that be geographical or work or another interest. This is just a reality of the society I find myself in.

In my very first post I said that a churchless faith meant that I would still be part of a community. But, by the above four definitions I fail. My life is more like a node or a website than a community. Tom said you can't be an effective Xn without community, this is something I stewed over for a long time. I wonder if it might be that we not called to be in community but to be love. Don't get me wrong community is great and I'd jump at the chance to be a part of any one of the above models but not at the sacrifice of the relationships and people I am serving at the moment.

I wonder if one of the reasons why the mega church works is because it works (probably not consciously) in an suburban sprawl environment.

Anyway, these communities are great but I'm looking for something that will transcend my current environment and I will be able to live a meaningful impactful counter cultural life without having to also be part of a pre-industrial village.