Preface
The following blog series is the story of our encounter with the Bruderhof Christian community. The posts of this blog, “The Big Adventure Blog”, were originally about our [more “traditional”] adventure driving across the continent to Iran in a Land Rover. This latest “adventure” doesn’t quite fit the traditional definition, but has been no less life-changing. It has the potential to be an adventure that carries on in to the sunset, with no fixed final destination until we meet our maker in the next stage of life.
On that note, if you're an atheist or even agnostic, there might be parts of this story that are hard to understand, as it is written in the context of an accepted belief in a real, living God, His son Jesus, and that the Bible contains the truth of how to live with the purpose for which we were created. If you are allergic to those beliefs you will probably want to give this blog series a miss.
Part 1: Discovering the Bruderhof
“In a Sussex village, a community has turned its back on the modern world to live a life free of money, crime and homelessness. But one young resident is questioning her future”.
This was the short synopsis of a documentary I stumbled across, while flicking (virtually) through the iPlayer’s Documentary catalogue one day in 2020. As someone who is very conscious of the perils of our modern, hi-tech, fast-paced lives, and is often looking for inspiration from simpler, some might say “alternative” lifestyles, it was instantly a “must-watch”. (I must add a side-note, that I absolutely recognise many of the huge benefits of technology and its advances, and it is the core of my current work. I remain with a “love-hate” relationship with technology).
The documentary is about the Bruderhof (“Place of Brothers” in German) - a Christian community founded 100 years ago whose primary aim is to live as closely as possible to the teachings of Jesus in the gospels, particularly the Sermon on the Mount. I’m sure any Christian reading this would think, “Yes that’s my aim, too”, as I would if I were reading this from someone else’s account. But their way of living is radically different to mine, which prompts an instant challenge: What are they reading from the gospels, that I’m missing? Or is it the other way around?
I watch the 38 minute documentary (herein referred to as “the doco”) through, which captures a snapshot of their lives in the Sussex village. This centres around communal living, sharing everything they have (no private property or belongings, aside from basic personal effects), living in unity with each other, and making children and family the priority of community life. From the 38 minute snapshot, in the most positive light it does come across as somewhat Utopian, but as someone in the doco points out, “It’s not a Utopia - we still all have to work!”. The wider Bruderhof church (they also like to use the term “movement”) has several businesses across their 27 communities around the world, the majority of which are located in the US and Europe. Many members work in the businesses, some work in professional jobs outside the community, and others work around the community village doing the various jobs necessary to make communal life run smoothly. Many aspects of their lifestyle shown in the doco appeal to me - the more relaxed pace of life, the schools with (very) small class sizes, the emphasis on spending time outdoors, the focus on family life, the absence of much of the “stuff” I have, including the hi-tech stuff (ref. The love-hate feeling towards technology). The “cost” of this life that jumps out primarily is the relinquishing of your own personal finances. No one earns a salary in the Bruderhof - the “sharing of all things” is taken in the economic sphere, to the extreme. This applies at all levels, so there is no exception for the Bruderhof leadership (pastors and elders). Though they would not like the use of the term “levels”, as another core-value is humility, and that everyone is of equal value, regardless of their role in the community. In return for this “cost”, everyone is provided for, and all of their needs are supported whole-heartedly from birth through to the end of their lives. The school and nursery provides an educational environment that the royals would approve of, and at the other end of life, the elderly, impaired or disabled are all cared for with an amount of love and attention (including medical attention) that I don’t think any amount of money could buy. And while an “absence of any material excess” is also very much a core-value, I can attest that despite the absence of many of the “things” we have in our home, their lives are comfortable, if still basic by my frugal standards.
The second aspect that jumps out visually from the doco, is that the dress of the women in the Bruderhof is significantly different to what is “normal”, both in the world and churches I’ve been a part of (which between those two there is often not a lot of difference). From my conservative views I am supportive of the modesty aspect of their dress, but have a small feeling of sadness that they don’t have the opportunity to dress more “joyfully” (a term we’ve started to use recently in our home). At this point I’ll move on from this aspect, and return to it in a later part of the blog series.
After I finish watching the doco, I am left with a feeling of fascination, intrigue and desire to learn more about this “alternative” Christian community. In part I’m in awe that despite being a Christian more-or-less my whole life, and knowing, I thought, about all branches of the Christian church, I had no idea that a church like this existed! My intrigue leads me to a couple of their Youtube channels, where members talk about Bruderhof community life, the challenges and rewards, and answer questions from viewers about different aspects of their lives and faith/beliefs. Their different conviction to mine of how we should apply Jesus’ teachings in our lives is challenging to me, and I continue to watch and learn more about their lives and faith. Trying to reconcile their convictions with my own, I get stuck on the issue of evangelism - sharing the gospel with others in my world. This doesn’t appear to be an emphasis in the Bruderhof. The emphasis appears instead to be living your life in a way that demonstrates the gospel, rather than telling people about the gospel. I have grown up in a Pentecostal church culture, where telling people about the gospel is a core value, and regardless of how well or not I do this personally, I still believe this is what Jesus calls us to do. When Jesus is preparing “the seventy two” He is sending out in Luke chapter 10, He instructs them (verse 9, NIV), “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”. A bit stuck on this point, I dial back my interest in the Bruderhof, but continue to receive their newsletter by email, of which I might read bits and pieces, and watch the occasional Youtube video.
The August email newsletter lands in my inbox, and within it contains an invitation which I have seen before: “If you would like to visit the Bruderhof, you would be very welcome”. On a bit of a whim, I send off an email in September, giving a brief background of our family, and asking if it would be possible for us to visit and stay for a few days. At this point, I have not told my wife, Jean, about requesting this! She too watched the doco and Youtube videos, and was interested in Bruderhof life, but her interest is not the strong fascination that I have.
Feeling somewhat guilty that I have potentially arranged a family “holiday” without consulting with her, I gently reveal to my wife, Jean, that I’ve emailed the Bruderhof to ask if they would have us to stay for a few days. Having gone self-employed this year, and spending all spare money on our loft-conversion, I try to “sell” the plan by framing it as “Our only chance to get out of Yorkshire this year” (which I must humbly admit, was in fact a small part of the motivation for me to arrange the trip down). This isn’t something that Jean would arrange of her own accord, but she shows her love for me and my somewhat crazy plan by agreeing willingly to the prospect of a week’s stay with the Bruderhof. A reply from Ian at the Bruderhof community in Darvell, Sussex, lands in my inbox the next day saying, “You would be very welcome!”. We arrange the visit for the last week of October, when the girls have a half-term break from their local school.
I don’t feel the need to make too many mental preparations - I know we are adaptable as a family and am confident we will be able to go along fairly easily with the different, communal way of life, at least for a week! In the days leading up to our drive down to Sussex we are hit by illness across the family. Along with the usual stresses and pressures of our current lives, and the fact that my interest in the Bruderhof was currently well below its peak, we both question our plans: “Why are we doing this again? Wouldn’t it be better to take the week off to stay around home and rest?”. Despite these significant doubts, we continue with our plan.
So on a warm-for-October Monday morning, we set off on the 5-hour journey to Sussex. For our main stop in Peterborough, we go to an indoor play-gym for an hour or so, to give the kids a chance to run around and play (and hopefully help Harry, our 20-month old son, to be tired enough to sleep again in the car). Even though we haven’t yet arrived in Darvell, I am acutely aware of the contrast between the environment we are presently placed in, and what I am expecting to find in the Bruderhof community. The play-gym is heaving with kids and parents. Not only loud, noisy and overly “un-peaceful”, it is Halloween week, and staff are dressed up as witches, monsters and skeletons, and the place is decorated with all manner of ornaments referencing things of a dark and evil nature. Very glad to get out of there, we continue our journey to Darvell.
We are met on arrival by the husband of our host family, Hardy Boller. Being introduced by text already, my strong suspicion that he is of American origin/background is confirmed when we first exchange greetings. We soon discover that the large majority of the 260 community members here (at least, the many we talked to) have the same light-American accent. It does feel from this initial experience that we’ve left England and entered some sort of mini American enclave. Our host family, Hardy, wife Marguerite and their 2-year old son are very warm and friendly, and we’re guided up to our “flat” next to theirs, in one of the residential buildings. We find welcome signs with our names on the doors of the bedrooms - a touch which further adds to the warmth of the welcome. The flat, which is spotlessly-clean, has a living+dining area and bedrooms just for us, and a communal kitchen area that we share. There are toilets and a shower just for our use, but they are through the shared kitchen, which is a bit of a frustrating design flaw. The flat is colourfully decorated, if a bit aged, and the furniture and living essentials (cookware, appliances etc) are not “fancy”, but of a high quality.
After the kids are settled in bed, we spend the evening chatting to Hardy, Marguerite and Hardy’s parents, who also are part of the Darvell community. It’s immediately clear that they are not living in any sort of bubble of the happenings of the world around them - we chat about current affairs over a couple of glasses of wine, and they share a little bit of their experience living in community. Hardy’s family lived outside the community for 8 years, which I think helps them to relate to us in a slightly easier way than perhaps some of the others.
Strong work ethic is a core-value of the Bruderhof, and as this is not a holiday, I am expected (and expecting) to work. Down at the factory of Community Playthings, a Bruderhof business which manufactures high quality wooden furniture and play equipment for nurseries and schools, I am set to work doing some easy table assembly. I am immediately struck by the peaceful atmosphere in the workplace. While I generally appreciate a quiet workplace, this peacefulness was on another level. The value of work is strong, but so is the value of relationships. So it was no problem for the people I was working with to slow down a bit or even pause a few minutes in order to talk to me, asking about our lives and why we had come to visit. This I really appreciated, as my desire to understand more about the Bruderhof way of living for Jesus is re-awakened. In these first couple of days with the Bruderhof I am able to bring to my conscience something that I felt but hadn’t previously been able to identify, that my current life is falling a reasonable way short of how Jesus might want, and be asking me (and by extension, my family) to live. That isn’t to say that I am doing nothing to serve His Kingdom or help the poor and needy as the Gospels clearly admonish us to do, we are. But I can identify that more is possible and desired of me. With that backdrop, I nail down two (related) objectives for the week: 1. To be challenged about how I am living my life, and 2. To be open and ready to learn.
A question that I posed long before our visit was, do these people have what I would assess as a genuine and real faith? Are they just living faithfully with religious practises, or do they have a relationship with God that is active and alive? One of the guys in the “shop” (factory), is particularly keen on conversation of a spiritual nature, which is what I really want to discuss. I latch on to this and explore a number of spiritual topics with him. It is quickly obvious that indeed he does have a genuine, living relationship with God. During the week I met more like him, as well as others where it was harder to tell - people who didn’t seem as obviously close in their relationship to God. I don’t say that to make any judgements whatsoever on those folk (I’d known them for all of “5 minutes”), but to make the observation that it seemed in fact the same as my experience within the pentecostal church, where different people are in different “places”, or different stages of their journey with God.
Speaking of my pentecostal church background, after a couple of days in the shop I broach the subject which I am currently struggling to reconcile from my current “theology” to that of the Bruderhof’s, which is the approach to evangelism. In that conversation, and in another Jean has with someone else later, a saying often attributed to St Francis of Assisi is quoted: “Preach the gospel at all times; use words if necessary”. I don’t disagree with this creed at all, that we should “live the gospel” and that our lives and actions should line up as closely as possible with what Jesus teaches, but I am still left with the feeling that the “necessity of words” is under-appreciated from what I know and continue to read in the gospels. With my initial enthusiasm of our time here slightly deflated, I’m not sure exactly what to do next for my “being challenged” and “learning” objectives, but I carry on with work in the shop, and wait to get home and hear how the girls’ day in the Bruderhof school has gone.
To be continued...
There are two more parts to come! If you are interested in finding out more about life in the Bruderhof, you COULD watch the doco which is still available on the iPlayer (called, Inside the Bruderhof), but I would more strongly recommend their book, “Another life is possible”. While the BBC documentary gives a snapshot of their lives and way of living, it doesn’t communicate as clearly the “WHY” behind their lives and church, and also makes the community appear more isolated than what we found it to be. The book is a balance of outstanding photography, combined with people’s stories about how and why they left their previous lives behind to join this Christian community. For anyone interested, it is available here: https://www.bookdepository.com/Another-Life-Is-Possible/9780874863161
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